Some more “What the heck?” geology on Mars
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 1, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small part of a region dubbed Iani Chaos, but what this geology shows is way beyond my pay grade.
Why there are those tiny aligned mounds, oriented at right angles to the slope, is not clear at all. Nor is it obvious what created the lighter chaotic terrain at the base of the slope.
The elevation difference between the low and high points is about 400 feet. The slope continues up to the west for another 600 feet to the top of a north-south ridgeline. The patterns here suggest vaguely some flows downhill, such as that widening east-to-west gap, but only vaguely.
The look at the overview map only compounds the mystery.
The white dot marks the location, very close to the equator and to the east of Valles Marineris and the theorized inland sea that some scientists believe once existed after the catastrophic floods had poured out of that giant canyon.
The landscape here however has less to do with those floods and more to do with another flow that came down from the south and flowed northward in Ares Vallis and around the ancient crater dubbed Aram Chaos. The landscape is also incredibly complex, far more complex than seen in the picture above. Much of the high terrain is covered with parallel grooves. The low terrain however alternates randomly from the craziness we see above to smooth featureless dust-filled bowls, interspersed with conelike mounds that could be remnant volcanoes of either lava or ice or some mixture in-between. The shape of much of the grooved terrain suggests it is very ancient lava flows that were subsequently groved by overlying glaciers.
This however is a guess that I have zero confidence in. Whatever happened to form these features took a long time and involved a variety of extremely different events. Untangling it all could take the entire lifetimes of several generations of geologists. And that would involve them being there, walking the terrain, not tens of millions of miles away studying orbital images.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit.
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
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on January 1, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows a small part of a region dubbed Iani Chaos, but what this geology shows is way beyond my pay grade.
Why there are those tiny aligned mounds, oriented at right angles to the slope, is not clear at all. Nor is it obvious what created the lighter chaotic terrain at the base of the slope.
The elevation difference between the low and high points is about 400 feet. The slope continues up to the west for another 600 feet to the top of a north-south ridgeline. The patterns here suggest vaguely some flows downhill, such as that widening east-to-west gap, but only vaguely.
The look at the overview map only compounds the mystery.
The white dot marks the location, very close to the equator and to the east of Valles Marineris and the theorized inland sea that some scientists believe once existed after the catastrophic floods had poured out of that giant canyon.
The landscape here however has less to do with those floods and more to do with another flow that came down from the south and flowed northward in Ares Vallis and around the ancient crater dubbed Aram Chaos. The landscape is also incredibly complex, far more complex than seen in the picture above. Much of the high terrain is covered with parallel grooves. The low terrain however alternates randomly from the craziness we see above to smooth featureless dust-filled bowls, interspersed with conelike mounds that could be remnant volcanoes of either lava or ice or some mixture in-between. The shape of much of the grooved terrain suggests it is very ancient lava flows that were subsequently groved by overlying glaciers.
This however is a guess that I have zero confidence in. Whatever happened to form these features took a long time and involved a variety of extremely different events. Untangling it all could take the entire lifetimes of several generations of geologists. And that would involve them being there, walking the terrain, not tens of millions of miles away studying orbital images.
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 print edition can be purchased at Amazon. from any other book seller, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. 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
Robert, or anyone else, have you ever seen a ‘wind map’ overlay for any portions of Mars? Is that even possible? Regardless, I think it’d be interesting to overlay winds on a map like that just to see what it looks like.
Ron: See this post:
The global wind patterns on Mars, determined by the orientation of dunes
As I have suggested to my readers numerous times, Behind the Black is a resource. Do a search and you shall find. I do it all the time, because I certainly can’t remember everything I’ve posted.
Thanks Robert, that is a cool map. I will look first, ask questions later, next time!