Strange glacial flow features on Mars?
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 26, 2020, and shows what the scientists dub “Flow features in Reull Vallis.”
These features are typical in the mid-latitudes, and once again suggest the presence of buried glacial ice. The two lobes on the left and right both evoke such flows, as does the material in the drainage channel near the top of the photo.
What is more intriguing however are the strange features in the box. Below is that section, at full resolution.
The aligned ridges are quite interesting. Even more baffling are the ridges that get more pointed as they go downhill. This is completely the opposite what is usually seen, and is clearly seen in the two large lobes in the first image above. While the foot of a Martian glacial flow is not necessarily wider than its head, it generally is rounded like a lobe, which is why scientists dub them lobate.
For it to thin to a point as it goes down is puzzling. My guess is that we are seeing some evidence of erosion, or sublimation of that glacial material.
These flows are coming down off a mountain on the north wall of the downstream end of Reull Vallis, a 950 miles long and major meandering canyon in the Martian southern cratered highlands that drains into Hellas Basin, the death valley of Mars.
The overview map to the right provides the location context. Today’s image is indicated by the red cross. The black cross indicates the location of a previous cool image about Reull Vallis, which according to some scientists must have been formed by flowing water, as in a river. Based on more recent data and the accumulating evidence of extensive glacial activity in the Martian mid-latitudes, that conclusion is being challenged. Instead, it might be that such river-like meandering canyons might be the result of glacial flow over many eons.
The strange pointed ridges seen in today’s image might be evidence of the past cycles of glacial ebb and flow. Right now it is generally believed that the water ice is in steady-state between the poles and the mid-latitudes. At other times however that water either sublimated from the poles to the mid-latitudes, causing these glaciers to grow, or returned to the poles, causing these glaciers to shrink. The sharp ridges might indicate that shrink process.
Or not. I am guessing, based on my limited geological knowledge of Mars.
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 photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on May 26, 2020, and shows what the scientists dub “Flow features in Reull Vallis.”
These features are typical in the mid-latitudes, and once again suggest the presence of buried glacial ice. The two lobes on the left and right both evoke such flows, as does the material in the drainage channel near the top of the photo.
What is more intriguing however are the strange features in the box. Below is that section, at full resolution.
The aligned ridges are quite interesting. Even more baffling are the ridges that get more pointed as they go downhill. This is completely the opposite what is usually seen, and is clearly seen in the two large lobes in the first image above. While the foot of a Martian glacial flow is not necessarily wider than its head, it generally is rounded like a lobe, which is why scientists dub them lobate.
For it to thin to a point as it goes down is puzzling. My guess is that we are seeing some evidence of erosion, or sublimation of that glacial material.
These flows are coming down off a mountain on the north wall of the downstream end of Reull Vallis, a 950 miles long and major meandering canyon in the Martian southern cratered highlands that drains into Hellas Basin, the death valley of Mars.
The overview map to the right provides the location context. Today’s image is indicated by the red cross. The black cross indicates the location of a previous cool image about Reull Vallis, which according to some scientists must have been formed by flowing water, as in a river. Based on more recent data and the accumulating evidence of extensive glacial activity in the Martian mid-latitudes, that conclusion is being challenged. Instead, it might be that such river-like meandering canyons might be the result of glacial flow over many eons.
The strange pointed ridges seen in today’s image might be evidence of the past cycles of glacial ebb and flow. Right now it is generally believed that the water ice is in steady-state between the poles and the mid-latitudes. At other times however that water either sublimated from the poles to the mid-latitudes, causing these glaciers to grow, or returned to the poles, causing these glaciers to shrink. The sharp ridges might indicate that shrink process.
Or not. I am guessing, based on my limited geological knowledge of Mars.
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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