Strange flat layers on Mars
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 16, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what MRO’s camera team labels as “layers near ridge in Argyre Planitia.”
The layers are strange because there is so little topographic difference between them. Though the ground slopes downward from the south to the north, dropping about 1,300 feet, it does so almost smoothly. The layers show relatively little topographic relief.
And what caused the circular shape? Is it evidence of a buried crater? And if so, why so little relief at its rim?
As always, the overview map provides some answers.
The red dot on the map to the right marks the location, in the southwest quadrant of Argyre Basin, one of Mars’ big basins thought to have been created by a large impact several billion years ago. The rectangle in the inset shows the area covered by the picture above. These layers and that circular feature sit at the northern base of a 3,000-foot-high ridge.
The inset also suggests strongly that the circular feature is actually material that flowed down the northern flank of that ridge, pushing into the plain below. This location is at 55 degrees south latitude, where near surface ice on Mars is common. The plains surrounding this ridge in fact look like a frozen ice sheet. When the material slid down the side of the ridge, the heat of transport might have softened that ice-impregnated ground enough to allow the material to push into the plain, creating the circular feature with its relatively flat topography.
As for the layers at the edge of that circular feature, they suggest that there were many layers within that ice sheet that got pushed and compressed when the flow pushed through. More evidence that Mars’ geological history involves many cycles, some seasonal, some annual, some decadal, and some involving many thousands of centuries to play out.
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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.
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Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, reduced, and enhanced to post here, was taken on July 16, 2024 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what MRO’s camera team labels as “layers near ridge in Argyre Planitia.”
The layers are strange because there is so little topographic difference between them. Though the ground slopes downward from the south to the north, dropping about 1,300 feet, it does so almost smoothly. The layers show relatively little topographic relief.
And what caused the circular shape? Is it evidence of a buried crater? And if so, why so little relief at its rim?
As always, the overview map provides some answers.
The red dot on the map to the right marks the location, in the southwest quadrant of Argyre Basin, one of Mars’ big basins thought to have been created by a large impact several billion years ago. The rectangle in the inset shows the area covered by the picture above. These layers and that circular feature sit at the northern base of a 3,000-foot-high ridge.
The inset also suggests strongly that the circular feature is actually material that flowed down the northern flank of that ridge, pushing into the plain below. This location is at 55 degrees south latitude, where near surface ice on Mars is common. The plains surrounding this ridge in fact look like a frozen ice sheet. When the material slid down the side of the ridge, the heat of transport might have softened that ice-impregnated ground enough to allow the material to push into the plain, creating the circular feature with its relatively flat topography.
As for the layers at the edge of that circular feature, they suggest that there were many layers within that ice sheet that got pushed and compressed when the flow pushed through. More evidence that Mars’ geological history involves many cycles, some seasonal, some annual, some decadal, and some involving many thousands of centuries to play out.
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.
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