Martian lava that buried a crater
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 24, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a lava flow that cut through an older 2-mile-wide crater, mostly burying it as it burst through the crater’s southwest and northeast rims. From the caption:
A lava channel extends from the feature and continues 60 kilometers to the northeast, growing deeper along its path. The circular formation is likely an eroded impact crater whose walls have been breached by the lava as it surrounded the rim and then infilled the crater. Alternatively, it could represent the location of a volcanic vent that sourced some of the lavas that formed the channel.
The black dot on the overview map to the right marks this location. In the inset you can see that 40-mile-long channel heading to the northeast. Though the giant volcano Olympus Mons is to the west, at this location the downhill grade is from the east to the west, dropping about 900 feet along the full length of that channel. That grade strongly suggests that this crater is not the “volcanic vent that sources some of the lavas that formed the channel.” The flows would have had to go uphill to carve the channel to the east.
Instead, the channel was likely a lava flow related to a 13-mile-crater about 30 miles to the northeast and visible at the edge of the overview map. That crater has a large splash apron, and could have produced enough impact melt to generate this lava tube.
Or maybe the crack formed well after both impacts. Underground pressure spread the surface to form the crack that split the crater in the image above, and lava flowed downhill along that crack to fill the gap in the middle of that crater.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on June 24, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a lava flow that cut through an older 2-mile-wide crater, mostly burying it as it burst through the crater’s southwest and northeast rims. From the caption:
A lava channel extends from the feature and continues 60 kilometers to the northeast, growing deeper along its path. The circular formation is likely an eroded impact crater whose walls have been breached by the lava as it surrounded the rim and then infilled the crater. Alternatively, it could represent the location of a volcanic vent that sourced some of the lavas that formed the channel.
The black dot on the overview map to the right marks this location. In the inset you can see that 40-mile-long channel heading to the northeast. Though the giant volcano Olympus Mons is to the west, at this location the downhill grade is from the east to the west, dropping about 900 feet along the full length of that channel. That grade strongly suggests that this crater is not the “volcanic vent that sources some of the lavas that formed the channel.” The flows would have had to go uphill to carve the channel to the east.
Instead, the channel was likely a lava flow related to a 13-mile-crater about 30 miles to the northeast and visible at the edge of the overview map. That crater has a large splash apron, and could have produced enough impact melt to generate this lava tube.
Or maybe the crack formed well after both impacts. Underground pressure spread the surface to form the crack that split the crater in the image above, and lava flowed downhill along that crack to fill the gap in the middle of that crater.
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.
Minor edit in first paragraph; “southwest”
Andi: Thank you again. I don’t know what I would do without my readers. Now fixed.