Sinkholes galore!
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photograph to the left, cropped to post here, was part of the November image dump from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a wind-swept dusty plain trending downhill to the west that is filled with more than a hundred depressions or sinkholes.
Unlike other pit images I have posted previously, this one is not focused on one particular pit or a string of pits. Instead, what makes it interesting is the large number of pits, scattered across the terrain in a random pattern. Their random distribution suggests that they are unrelated to any specific underground feature, such as a lava tube. Instead, some aspect of the underground geology here is causing the ground to sink at random points.
Below is an overview map showing where this dusty pit-strewn plain is located, indicated by the blue cross.
South of the solar system’s largest volcano, Olympus Mons, this region is part of of the transition zone between the Tharsis Bulge where Mars’ giant volcanoes are located, down to northern lowland plains, shown in blue to the west.
I do not know whether these pits formed from volcanic activity or some underground erosion process. At a latitude of only 9 degrees north the presence of abundant underground water is unlikely, though not impossible. Yet, the pits might be very old, formed at a time when Mars’ climate was wetter and the transition zone was a region where liquid water might have intermittently ebbed and flowed across the terrain.
All speculation. I just like the weirdness of this pitted plain.
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.
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photograph to the left, cropped to post here, was part of the November image dump from the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a wind-swept dusty plain trending downhill to the west that is filled with more than a hundred depressions or sinkholes.
Unlike other pit images I have posted previously, this one is not focused on one particular pit or a string of pits. Instead, what makes it interesting is the large number of pits, scattered across the terrain in a random pattern. Their random distribution suggests that they are unrelated to any specific underground feature, such as a lava tube. Instead, some aspect of the underground geology here is causing the ground to sink at random points.
Below is an overview map showing where this dusty pit-strewn plain is located, indicated by the blue cross.
South of the solar system’s largest volcano, Olympus Mons, this region is part of of the transition zone between the Tharsis Bulge where Mars’ giant volcanoes are located, down to northern lowland plains, shown in blue to the west.
I do not know whether these pits formed from volcanic activity or some underground erosion process. At a latitude of only 9 degrees north the presence of abundant underground water is unlikely, though not impossible. Yet, the pits might be very old, formed at a time when Mars’ climate was wetter and the transition zone was a region where liquid water might have intermittently ebbed and flowed across the terrain.
All speculation. I just like the weirdness of this pitted plain.
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.
I remember as a lad my father driving us around the Shropshire/Yorkshire dales, and pointing out the sinkholes as we past them, and also showing me as we were walking across the landscape… Some he would let me gaze into , seemingly descending into the depths of the earth, others just a crater, sometimes filled with rubble…
Yet others he would warn me to keep away from the edge, presumably as it was unstable…. They call the area “limestone country”, and almost all are caused by the erosion of the more easy dissolved limestone around harder rock.
Sorry to reiterate what most here know!
Some terrestrial images show the distinct path of underground water, but images like the above fill my mind with alien processes that could perhaps cause such a random scattering of pits …. If only we can discover WHY in our lifetime…
https://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/engineeringGeology/shallowGeohazardsAndRisks/sinkholes/home.html
This link is a good infographic on the causes of these pits here on earth.