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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
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.