Martian ridge sticking up out of a lava flood plain
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on August 9, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and was featured today as this camera’s picture of the day. As today’s caption notes:
This observation focuses a ridge that is standing above the old lava surface of the floor of Echus Chasma. What is this ridge doing here? Is it preexisting material surrounded by lava? Is it material pushed up at a restraining bend? If the ridge is not lava, it may have colorful flanks.
The overview map below shows that this location in Echus Chasma is even more interesting, as some scientists believe it once also held a large lake.
The small white dot near the southern terminus of Echus Chasma marks the location of this ridge. The blue area in the Chasma is the theorized lake, held in by an ice dam (the white line). The black areas to the north mark a specific lava event the length of the Columbia River that came from Tharsis Thous and covered Kasei Valles in only a matter of weeks.
This image suggests that the southern parts of Kasei Valles, in Echus, also had their own flood lava events, events so extensive that the lava covered many surface features. The ridge thus could be the top of a much higher mountain that is now mostly hidden below the lava. It is also possible it is a lava extrusion pushed through a fissure.
Whether these volcanic events occurred before, during, or after the hypothesized lake is not known.
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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.
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on August 9, 2020 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and was featured today as this camera’s picture of the day. As today’s caption notes:
This observation focuses a ridge that is standing above the old lava surface of the floor of Echus Chasma. What is this ridge doing here? Is it preexisting material surrounded by lava? Is it material pushed up at a restraining bend? If the ridge is not lava, it may have colorful flanks.
The overview map below shows that this location in Echus Chasma is even more interesting, as some scientists believe it once also held a large lake.
The small white dot near the southern terminus of Echus Chasma marks the location of this ridge. The blue area in the Chasma is the theorized lake, held in by an ice dam (the white line). The black areas to the north mark a specific lava event the length of the Columbia River that came from Tharsis Thous and covered Kasei Valles in only a matter of weeks.
This image suggests that the southern parts of Kasei Valles, in Echus, also had their own flood lava events, events so extensive that the lava covered many surface features. The ridge thus could be the top of a much higher mountain that is now mostly hidden below the lava. It is also possible it is a lava extrusion pushed through a fissure.
Whether these volcanic events occurred before, during, or after the hypothesized lake is not known.
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.
More of God’s doodling.
Curious if the size (medium-to-small), and density (high, but mostly small craters) give an indication of the age of the feature. Looks like a flood lava event, and maybe not all that old.