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My February birthday fund-raising campaign for this website, Behind the Black, is now over. Despite a relatively weak initial three weeks, the last week was spectacular, making this campaign the second best ever.

 

Thanks to every person who donated or subscribed. It continues to astonish me that people who can read my work for free like it enough to donate money voluntarily. Words cannot express my appreciation for that support, especially in these uncertain times.

 

If you have been a regular reader and a fan of my work and have not yet donated or subscribed, please consider doing so. I take no ads, I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands (most of the time). Thus, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
 
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652


Razor butte on Mars

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.

Overview map
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.

Genesis cover

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

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