Martian pseudo-frost terrain
Click for original image.
Cool image time! It is always dangerous to come to any quick conclusions about what you see from pictures from another planet. The photograph to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 19, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what at first glance looks like a surface similar to frosting seen on window panes on Earth in the winter, where water condensation freezes to form crystalline patterns.
Your first glance would be wrong. This terrain is about 120 miles north of the Martian equator, placing inside the dry equatorial regions where no near-surface ice is known to exist. If this geological feature is formed by the same condensation processes that create ice frost, then it must involve the deposition of some other type of material.
The explanation would also have to account for the change in the terrain, from finely patterned on the right to more crystalline on the left.
As always, a wider look helps provide a possible explanation. The white dot on the overview map to the right marks this location, on the eastern rim of what appears to be a 27-mile-wide impact crater. Except it isn’t an impact crater, but the caldera of a very indistinct shield volcano in the large Arabia Terra region, the largest Martian transitional zone between the cratered southern highlands and the northern lowland plains.
The reason I think this is a caldera is that, in looking at a MRO context camera image, it appears that a lava flow descended to the north from this crater. Either way, the pseudo-frost appears to be heavily eroded lava that either eroded to look like this or froze in these patterns and was afterward revealed by erosion. The change in the surface pattern appears to be from greater erosion to the west, which stripped off more of the top layer of lava.
The crystalline pattern however suggests a very intriguing geology, possibly some form of mineralization. From a resource perspective this location might be worth a closer look, as it might contain something worth mining.
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:
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4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! It is always dangerous to come to any quick conclusions about what you see from pictures from another planet. The photograph to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on August 19, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), and shows what at first glance looks like a surface similar to frosting seen on window panes on Earth in the winter, where water condensation freezes to form crystalline patterns.
Your first glance would be wrong. This terrain is about 120 miles north of the Martian equator, placing inside the dry equatorial regions where no near-surface ice is known to exist. If this geological feature is formed by the same condensation processes that create ice frost, then it must involve the deposition of some other type of material.
The explanation would also have to account for the change in the terrain, from finely patterned on the right to more crystalline on the left.
As always, a wider look helps provide a possible explanation. The white dot on the overview map to the right marks this location, on the eastern rim of what appears to be a 27-mile-wide impact crater. Except it isn’t an impact crater, but the caldera of a very indistinct shield volcano in the large Arabia Terra region, the largest Martian transitional zone between the cratered southern highlands and the northern lowland plains.
The reason I think this is a caldera is that, in looking at a MRO context camera image, it appears that a lava flow descended to the north from this crater. Either way, the pseudo-frost appears to be heavily eroded lava that either eroded to look like this or froze in these patterns and was afterward revealed by erosion. The change in the surface pattern appears to be from greater erosion to the west, which stripped off more of the top layer of lava.
The crystalline pattern however suggests a very intriguing geology, possibly some form of mineralization. From a resource perspective this location might be worth a closer look, as it might contain something worth mining.
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.
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