Ridges from fractures at the head of a 300+mile-long Martian drainage channel
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 4, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The science team labels this “Exhumed Fracture Network,” referring to the criss-crossing ridges on the eroded mesa at the picture’s center. That mesa only rises about sixty feet from the east-west channel at the top of the picture, but the location is actually on the outside northern rim of an unnamed 70-mile-wide very eroded ancient crater. The rim itself rises another 500 feet to the south before descending 10,000 feet to the crater floor.
I am assuming by the title that the geologists believe this ridges were originally cracks that got filled with more resistant material, probably lava. The fracture network then got covered over. More recent erosion removed the material around the cracks, but the material in the cracks resisted that erosion.
The most intriguing feature in this picture however might actually be that nondescript channel.
The red dot on the overview map to the right marks the location of the picture, south of the heavily glaciated chaos region called Nilosyrtis Mensae. This location is also in the dry equatorial regions, at about 28 degrees north latitude, so we should not expect to find much near surface ice.
The channel in the picture is actually the source of the 300-plus-mile-long Auqakun Vallis, one of the many ancient meandering canyons on Mars that make every Earthman who sees them assume water once flowed on Mars. That might be true, but so far the data is inconclusive. If anything, that data is beginning to suggest, but also not confirmed, that the flows were glacial ice, not liquid water.
Either way, Auqakun Vallis drops about 55,000 feet over those 300 miles, where it drains into the northern lowland plains at a point where a lot of glaciers are found. Moreover, along the way it enters the mid-latitudes, where near surface ice is often found. In doing a quick review of the relatively few MRO high resolution images of this canyon along its route, it does not appear there are glacial features within it at any point, but these could exist in the north, buried by sand and dust.
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.
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on October 4, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).
The science team labels this “Exhumed Fracture Network,” referring to the criss-crossing ridges on the eroded mesa at the picture’s center. That mesa only rises about sixty feet from the east-west channel at the top of the picture, but the location is actually on the outside northern rim of an unnamed 70-mile-wide very eroded ancient crater. The rim itself rises another 500 feet to the south before descending 10,000 feet to the crater floor.
I am assuming by the title that the geologists believe this ridges were originally cracks that got filled with more resistant material, probably lava. The fracture network then got covered over. More recent erosion removed the material around the cracks, but the material in the cracks resisted that erosion.
The most intriguing feature in this picture however might actually be that nondescript channel.
The red dot on the overview map to the right marks the location of the picture, south of the heavily glaciated chaos region called Nilosyrtis Mensae. This location is also in the dry equatorial regions, at about 28 degrees north latitude, so we should not expect to find much near surface ice.
The channel in the picture is actually the source of the 300-plus-mile-long Auqakun Vallis, one of the many ancient meandering canyons on Mars that make every Earthman who sees them assume water once flowed on Mars. That might be true, but so far the data is inconclusive. If anything, that data is beginning to suggest, but also not confirmed, that the flows were glacial ice, not liquid water.
Either way, Auqakun Vallis drops about 55,000 feet over those 300 miles, where it drains into the northern lowland plains at a point where a lot of glaciers are found. Moreover, along the way it enters the mid-latitudes, where near surface ice is often found. In doing a quick review of the relatively few MRO high resolution images of this canyon along its route, it does not appear there are glacial features within it at any point, but these could exist in the north, buried by sand and dust.
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.
Minor edits in second paragraph:
“That mesa only rises about sixty feet from the east-west channel”
“The rim itself rises another 500 feet to the south before descending 10,000 feet to the the crater floor.”
Andi: Fixed. Thank you.