Endless ash fields on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 18, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
It shows the very typical surface on a high plateau in Mars’ dry tropical regions. The dunes you see here, in this very small slice, cover a region about 80 miles square, with the prevailing winds appearing to consistently blow from the northeast to the southwest and forming these endless striations.
The dunes are made of volcanic ash, and the size of this particular ash field gives us a sense of the past volcanic activity that once dominated the red planet. Once, the atmosphere was filled with ash, which covered the ground across large regions. In the subsequent eons the thin Martian atmosphere has reshaped and piled that ash into giant mounds hundreds of miles across, with the surface striated as we see here.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, in a region dubbed Memnonia Sulcia, located at about 8 degrees south latitude in the region of Mars I label volcano country because its entire surface seems shaped by some kind of volcanic process, either lava flows or ash fields or volcanic cones or giant volcanoes.
In this case, the ash that covers Memnonia Sulci is all part of the biggest ash field on Mars, dubbed the Medusae Fossae Formation. Medusae in total covers an area equivalent to the subcontinent of India, and is believed to be the source of most of the red dust that gives the red planet its nickname.
No matter how advanced in technology and terra-forming the future colonists of Mars become, I don’t believe this will ever be a popular place to live. No water, no minerals, no worthwhile resources. Its only advantage is its location near the warmer equator, but there are many other places in the Martian tropics that will likely be far more hospitable.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 18, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
It shows the very typical surface on a high plateau in Mars’ dry tropical regions. The dunes you see here, in this very small slice, cover a region about 80 miles square, with the prevailing winds appearing to consistently blow from the northeast to the southwest and forming these endless striations.
The dunes are made of volcanic ash, and the size of this particular ash field gives us a sense of the past volcanic activity that once dominated the red planet. Once, the atmosphere was filled with ash, which covered the ground across large regions. In the subsequent eons the thin Martian atmosphere has reshaped and piled that ash into giant mounds hundreds of miles across, with the surface striated as we see here.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, in a region dubbed Memnonia Sulcia, located at about 8 degrees south latitude in the region of Mars I label volcano country because its entire surface seems shaped by some kind of volcanic process, either lava flows or ash fields or volcanic cones or giant volcanoes.
In this case, the ash that covers Memnonia Sulci is all part of the biggest ash field on Mars, dubbed the Medusae Fossae Formation. Medusae in total covers an area equivalent to the subcontinent of India, and is believed to be the source of most of the red dust that gives the red planet its nickname.
No matter how advanced in technology and terra-forming the future colonists of Mars become, I don’t believe this will ever be a popular place to live. No water, no minerals, no worthwhile resources. Its only advantage is its location near the warmer equator, but there are many other places in the Martian tropics that will likely be far more hospitable.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Bob,
Something is off here. You went west one too many times.
” with the prevailing winds appearing to consistently blow from the northwest to the southwest”
Regardless, it’s a fascinating landscape.
Tom, good catch! When I read it my mind saw “southeast”! My question is how tall are these dunes? How do they compare to the dunes of the Sahara, for example?
Tom: It should have been “northeast”. I have fixed it. Thank you.
I am aware that there are types of dunes that form with their long-axis parallel to the prevailing winds (“seif”), and perpendicular to it (“transverse”). According to your description, these would be seif. Not sure what causes one versus the other on Mars, or if there are multiple types on Mars?