Layered Martian mesa inside crater
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 14, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “layered butte inside small crater.”
The crater is only about 1.8 miles across, and is only a couple of hundred feet deep, at the most. Because this crater sits on a large slope rising to the southwest, the mesa’s peak is actually about thirty feet higher than the crater’s northern rim, but is still below the southern rim by about 70 feet.
A close look at the mesa’s slopes suggests about a dozen obvious layers, though based on data from the rovers Curiosity and Perseverance, those obvious layers are probably divided into many hundreds of thinner layers in between.
What caused these layers? And how did such a small crater get such a relatively large mesa in its center? As always, the overview map provides some clues, but as always it does not provide a definitive answer.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, in the middle of Arabia Terra, the largest transistion zone on Mars between its northern lowland plains and its southern cratered highlands. The crater sits about 400 miles due north of the region explored by the rover Opportunity, inside the Martian dry tropics.
The inset provides some hints as to what is happening here. The crater sits about 24 miles northeast from the rim of 41-mile-wide Danielson Crater, and appears to actually sit on the splash melt that flowed down from that crater after its impact. The small arrows indicate the front edges of that splash melt.
Of the other similar sized craters in the inset, this is the only crater with a mesa in the middle. The others look like ordinary impact craters that occurred long after the Danielson impact, or were secondary ejecta hits at the time of the Danielson impact.
So why does this crater have this mesa? I have no idea, nor do I have any theories that make sense. My first guess was that the crater was a caldera from which that splash melt had flowed, but the topography and shape of the crater does not support that theory. Nor does mesa or its layers.
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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:
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on May 14, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label as a “layered butte inside small crater.”
The crater is only about 1.8 miles across, and is only a couple of hundred feet deep, at the most. Because this crater sits on a large slope rising to the southwest, the mesa’s peak is actually about thirty feet higher than the crater’s northern rim, but is still below the southern rim by about 70 feet.
A close look at the mesa’s slopes suggests about a dozen obvious layers, though based on data from the rovers Curiosity and Perseverance, those obvious layers are probably divided into many hundreds of thinner layers in between.
What caused these layers? And how did such a small crater get such a relatively large mesa in its center? As always, the overview map provides some clues, but as always it does not provide a definitive answer.
The white dot on the overview map to the right marks the location, in the middle of Arabia Terra, the largest transistion zone on Mars between its northern lowland plains and its southern cratered highlands. The crater sits about 400 miles due north of the region explored by the rover Opportunity, inside the Martian dry tropics.
The inset provides some hints as to what is happening here. The crater sits about 24 miles northeast from the rim of 41-mile-wide Danielson Crater, and appears to actually sit on the splash melt that flowed down from that crater after its impact. The small arrows indicate the front edges of that splash melt.
Of the other similar sized craters in the inset, this is the only crater with a mesa in the middle. The others look like ordinary impact craters that occurred long after the Danielson impact, or were secondary ejecta hits at the time of the Danielson impact.
So why does this crater have this mesa? I have no idea, nor do I have any theories that make sense. My first guess was that the crater was a caldera from which that splash melt had flowed, but the topography and shape of the crater does not support that theory. Nor does mesa or its layers.
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.
As usual, the headline is more sensationalistic than the article itself. I am almost 50 years old and it has been that way as long as I remember.
Cloudy: Um, what headline are you referring to? I don’t think “Layered Martian mesa inside crater” is particular sensationalistic.