The breakup of a Martian glacier
Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 29, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label a “contact” in the glacier country in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars.
The contact is clearly the region of breakup in the middle of the picture. To the right the surface is whole and very smooth. As we move to the left that surface begins to show cracks and holes until those holes and cracks eliminate that surface entirely, revealing a lower layer that is soft-looking and stippled.
In other words, this is the edge of a glacier, and is the place in which it is breaking up. Unlike Earth glaciers however this breakup process is entirely different.
The white dot in Deuteronilus Mensae indicates the location of this glacial breakup. At 43 degrees north latitude, it is deep within the Martian 2,000-mile-long northern mid-latitude strip of chaos terrain I dub glacier country. Here, almost every picture shows glacial features.
This contact suggests that the top ice/debris glacial layer on the right has been sublimating away at this location, exposing the lower ice/debris glacial layer on the left.
On Earth, the breakup on the edge of a glacier takes place in sudden events, when large pieces of ice break off due to the freeze/thaw cycle caused by daily and seasonal temperature changes. Though the process is not fast, it does happen in quick bursts as each piece breaks away.
On Mars, the ice doesn’t break off and fall into water. Instead, the ice sublimates directly from a solid to a gas. As this often happens just below the surface (which is usually dirt and debris protecting the ice), the gas pressure can cause that surface to burst, creating the cracks and holes we see here. Once those lower levels of purer ice are exposed, the sublimation accelerates, and soon the ice is gone.
In this case, once complete that sublimation process exposed the top protective layer of dirt/debris covering a lower glacier layer, probably laid down during an earlier Martian cycle of glacial growth.
This process might also provide us an explanation for a previous cool image, where the floor of a crater in the southern cratered mid-latitudes appeared to be peeling away.
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:
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Click for original image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and reduced to post here, was taken on January 29, 2023 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label a “contact” in the glacier country in the northern mid-latitudes of Mars.
The contact is clearly the region of breakup in the middle of the picture. To the right the surface is whole and very smooth. As we move to the left that surface begins to show cracks and holes until those holes and cracks eliminate that surface entirely, revealing a lower layer that is soft-looking and stippled.
In other words, this is the edge of a glacier, and is the place in which it is breaking up. Unlike Earth glaciers however this breakup process is entirely different.
The white dot in Deuteronilus Mensae indicates the location of this glacial breakup. At 43 degrees north latitude, it is deep within the Martian 2,000-mile-long northern mid-latitude strip of chaos terrain I dub glacier country. Here, almost every picture shows glacial features.
This contact suggests that the top ice/debris glacial layer on the right has been sublimating away at this location, exposing the lower ice/debris glacial layer on the left.
On Earth, the breakup on the edge of a glacier takes place in sudden events, when large pieces of ice break off due to the freeze/thaw cycle caused by daily and seasonal temperature changes. Though the process is not fast, it does happen in quick bursts as each piece breaks away.
On Mars, the ice doesn’t break off and fall into water. Instead, the ice sublimates directly from a solid to a gas. As this often happens just below the surface (which is usually dirt and debris protecting the ice), the gas pressure can cause that surface to burst, creating the cracks and holes we see here. Once those lower levels of purer ice are exposed, the sublimation accelerates, and soon the ice is gone.
In this case, once complete that sublimation process exposed the top protective layer of dirt/debris covering a lower glacier layer, probably laid down during an earlier Martian cycle of glacial growth.
This process might also provide us an explanation for a previous cool image, where the floor of a crater in the southern cratered mid-latitudes appeared to be peeling away.
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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