Massive landslide in Martian canyon
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, enhanced, and annotated to post here, was taken on September 5, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The image shows a gigantic landslide collapse on the southern interior wall of a long meandering canyon on Mars dubbed Bahram Vallis. The collapse was what scientists call a mass wasting event, in which the entire section of cliff wall breaks off and moves downward as a large unit. In this case the falling section, a half mile wide and long, got squeezed near the bottom, piling up rather than flowing out into the canyon floor.
At this particular location the canyon is 2.4 miles wide, with cliff walls about 1,700 feet high. Imagine when this piece broke off: In one instance a giant section of mountain about a half mile long fell about a thousand feet. Even in Mars’ thin atmosphere the sound must have been thunderous.
The white dot in the inset on the overview map to the right indicates the location of this avalanche inside Bahram Vallis. The black areas inside Kasei Valles mark a past lava flow. The white line is a theorized ice dam that created a theorized lake as indicated in blue.
Though Bahram Vallis is one of the smaller such canyons on Mars, only slightly less than 200 miles long, it is remarkably distinct and well defined, with a width consistently between two and four miles along its entire length, thus making it look more like a lava rill than a river canyon. Though there are erosional features inside the canyon that suggest flowing liquid, its consistent and distinct meandering shape once again suggests that glaciers rather than flowing water might have carved it.
Scientists also believe these mass wasting events are linked somehow to the presence of underground water or ice impregnated in the ground that weakens it. If so, that water or ice is long gone at this location, as it is inside the dry equatorial regions of Mars, where orbital data has so far found no near surface ice. The remains of this avalanche are therefore very old, though an exact date cannot be determined based on the available data.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, enhanced, and annotated to post here, was taken on September 5, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The image shows a gigantic landslide collapse on the southern interior wall of a long meandering canyon on Mars dubbed Bahram Vallis. The collapse was what scientists call a mass wasting event, in which the entire section of cliff wall breaks off and moves downward as a large unit. In this case the falling section, a half mile wide and long, got squeezed near the bottom, piling up rather than flowing out into the canyon floor.
At this particular location the canyon is 2.4 miles wide, with cliff walls about 1,700 feet high. Imagine when this piece broke off: In one instance a giant section of mountain about a half mile long fell about a thousand feet. Even in Mars’ thin atmosphere the sound must have been thunderous.
The white dot in the inset on the overview map to the right indicates the location of this avalanche inside Bahram Vallis. The black areas inside Kasei Valles mark a past lava flow. The white line is a theorized ice dam that created a theorized lake as indicated in blue.
Though Bahram Vallis is one of the smaller such canyons on Mars, only slightly less than 200 miles long, it is remarkably distinct and well defined, with a width consistently between two and four miles along its entire length, thus making it look more like a lava rill than a river canyon. Though there are erosional features inside the canyon that suggest flowing liquid, its consistent and distinct meandering shape once again suggests that glaciers rather than flowing water might have carved it.
Scientists also believe these mass wasting events are linked somehow to the presence of underground water or ice impregnated in the ground that weakens it. If so, that water or ice is long gone at this location, as it is inside the dry equatorial regions of Mars, where orbital data has so far found no near surface ice. The remains of this avalanche are therefore very old, though an exact date cannot be determined based on the available data.
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.
Perhaps the mass slumped rapidly, rather than so much falling. 0.3g. I have seen video of landslides moving at little more than walking pace, but relentlessly so.