Canyons formed from the giant crack that splits Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a complex of north-south trending canyons, with easternmost cliff about 400 feet high (though the full drop to the large canyon on its east is closer to 800 feet).
These canyons however have nothing to do with ice or water flow. They were formed by underground tectonic forces that pushed the ground upward, forced it to split and form cracks. Those cracks in turn produced these canyons. In some cases, such as the depression on top of the central ridge, the formation process probably occurred because fissures formed below ground, causing the surface to sag.
As always, the hiker in me wants to walk up the nose of that ridge and then along its western edge, with the western canyon on my left and that smaller depression on my right.
The larger context of this location is in itself even more spectacular.
The white dot marks the location in the inset on the overview map to the right, on the southern slopes of the giant volcano Ascraeus Mons, in a region of many cracks and canyons dubbed Ascraeus Chasmata. As you can see, these cracks/canyons align with the 3,500-mile-long fault line that splits Mars and was the likely upward route taken by the lava that formed Ascraeus and the two giant volcanoes to the southwest.
Note the dark blue splotch just above the word “map” on the global reference map on upper left of the overview map. That splotch is Helas Basin, the deepest and largest basin on Mars and thought to have been formed by a giant impact around four billion years ago. Some scientists have posited that the huge volcanoes plus this giant fault line that sit almost exactly on the opposite side of Mars might have been caused by the impact.
This hypothesis is not proven, but its possibility is intriguing, to say the least.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 22, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a complex of north-south trending canyons, with easternmost cliff about 400 feet high (though the full drop to the large canyon on its east is closer to 800 feet).
These canyons however have nothing to do with ice or water flow. They were formed by underground tectonic forces that pushed the ground upward, forced it to split and form cracks. Those cracks in turn produced these canyons. In some cases, such as the depression on top of the central ridge, the formation process probably occurred because fissures formed below ground, causing the surface to sag.
As always, the hiker in me wants to walk up the nose of that ridge and then along its western edge, with the western canyon on my left and that smaller depression on my right.
The larger context of this location is in itself even more spectacular.
The white dot marks the location in the inset on the overview map to the right, on the southern slopes of the giant volcano Ascraeus Mons, in a region of many cracks and canyons dubbed Ascraeus Chasmata. As you can see, these cracks/canyons align with the 3,500-mile-long fault line that splits Mars and was the likely upward route taken by the lava that formed Ascraeus and the two giant volcanoes to the southwest.
Note the dark blue splotch just above the word “map” on the global reference map on upper left of the overview map. That splotch is Helas Basin, the deepest and largest basin on Mars and thought to have been formed by a giant impact around four billion years ago. Some scientists have posited that the huge volcanoes plus this giant fault line that sit almost exactly on the opposite side of Mars might have been caused by the impact.
This hypothesis is not proven, but its possibility is intriguing, to say the least.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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