Razor butte on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 18, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team labeled this image “Inverted Channel and Possible Lake Deposits.” The sharp razor-like butte, which I estimate is about 200 to 400 feet high, is an example of the several inverted channels in the full image. The serrated-edged flat plateau at the top of this picture, one of several in the full image, is an example of those possible lake deposits.
Why do the scientists think a lake might have once been here? Located at 8 degrees north latitude in the dry equatorial regions of Mars, there is almost certainly no near surface ice here now.
As always, the overview map provides the context, and a possible explanation.
The dot west of Ganges canyon marks the location of this picture, which covers the northwest quadrant of a 30-mile-wide unnamed crater on the plateau north of the giant canyon Valles Marineris.
Scientists have accumulated a lot of evidence that the canyons and craters north of Valles Marineris once held lakes. For example, see this November 2020 post about a paper outlining the evidence that lakes and rivers once existed to the west of the sixty-mile-wide and three-mile deep Juventae Chasma, about 150 miles to the northwest of this crater. At that location MRO images found inverted channels similar to the razor butte above. As I wrote then,
What scientists think happened is that in the past an intermittent lake of varying depth … would come and go … at intervals separated by 100 to 100,000 years, with the lakes themselves possibly lasting as long at 10,000 years.
As the lakes ebbed and flowed, they eroded the bedrock on the floor of the crater. The ridges represent former flow channels. Because the channel floor was packed down by the flow, it became denser, and thus remained behind as the surrounding terrain was eroded away.
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on November 18, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The science team labeled this image “Inverted Channel and Possible Lake Deposits.” The sharp razor-like butte, which I estimate is about 200 to 400 feet high, is an example of the several inverted channels in the full image. The serrated-edged flat plateau at the top of this picture, one of several in the full image, is an example of those possible lake deposits.
Why do the scientists think a lake might have once been here? Located at 8 degrees north latitude in the dry equatorial regions of Mars, there is almost certainly no near surface ice here now.
As always, the overview map provides the context, and a possible explanation.
The dot west of Ganges canyon marks the location of this picture, which covers the northwest quadrant of a 30-mile-wide unnamed crater on the plateau north of the giant canyon Valles Marineris.
Scientists have accumulated a lot of evidence that the canyons and craters north of Valles Marineris once held lakes. For example, see this November 2020 post about a paper outlining the evidence that lakes and rivers once existed to the west of the sixty-mile-wide and three-mile deep Juventae Chasma, about 150 miles to the northwest of this crater. At that location MRO images found inverted channels similar to the razor butte above. As I wrote then,
What scientists think happened is that in the past an intermittent lake of varying depth … would come and go … at intervals separated by 100 to 100,000 years, with the lakes themselves possibly lasting as long at 10,000 years.
As the lakes ebbed and flowed, they eroded the bedrock on the floor of the crater. The ridges represent former flow channels. Because the channel floor was packed down by the flow, it became denser, and thus remained behind as the surrounding terrain was eroded away.
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.
Instapundit pointed to this piece (from Icarus last year) a handful of days ago, revealing evidence that there’s presently lots of water down under the floor of parts of Valles Marineris’ canyon(s), to wit: “The evidence for unusually high hydrogen abundances in the central part of Valles Marineris on Mars.” Don’t recall if you’d already talked about it….
Michael McNeil: Heh. Posted here on BtB in December 2021:
Scientists discover underground reservoir of hydrogen, likely ice, near Martian equator
What I do in my post that no one else in the press did was note the importance of the latitude. If confirmed as underground water ice, this would be a significant find, as it is in the dry equatorial regions of Mars.
… the dry equatorial regions of Mars.
Yes, that occurred to me too. Plus the floor of Valles Marineris is far lower than the surrounding dry plateau. It reminds me of something I heard about the Grand Canyon: Snow falls frequently at the Grand Canyon rim, but not a snowflake ever makes its way down (1 mile in elevation) to the bottom of the canyon. Yet at the bottom of (the even bigger) Valles Marineris on Mars – at a latitude otherwise quite dry – we appear to have found a great deal of “snow” (ice), that’s been maintaining itself there against sublimation for eons. Most fascinating!