The featureless volcanic ash plains of Mars
Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 10, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be a relatively featureless plain with a surface resembling stucco.
At -9 degrees south latitude, this is in the Martian dry equatorial regions. No ice or glaciers here. However, the consistent orientation of the knobs and hills suggest dunes and sand blown by prevailing winds, and that guess holds some truth. This location is deep within the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars, covering an area about as big as India, and believed to be the source of most of the red planet’s dust.
We are thus looking at thick layer of ash, its surface shaped over eons by the winds of Mars’ thin atmosphere.
The white cross on the overview map to the right marks the location of this picture, about 250 miles north of where the rover Spirit had roamed.
A look at a wider MRO context camera image of this area only shows that this featureless terrain extends over a wide area. Traveling here would not only be difficult, but there would be few clear features to guide you. Getting lost without GPS would be very easy.
The full high resolution image however reveals that the orientation of the stucco terrain shifts suddenly by 90 degrees to the south, while to the north the knobs and dunelike features almost vanish entirely, leaving the ground relatively smooth and even more featureless. Why the ash field should change like this is a complete puzzle. Maybe some of what we are looking at is not ash but frozen lava. Maybe. I am guessing.
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Cool image time! The photo to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken on September 10, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what appears to be a relatively featureless plain with a surface resembling stucco.
At -9 degrees south latitude, this is in the Martian dry equatorial regions. No ice or glaciers here. However, the consistent orientation of the knobs and hills suggest dunes and sand blown by prevailing winds, and that guess holds some truth. This location is deep within the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash deposit on Mars, covering an area about as big as India, and believed to be the source of most of the red planet’s dust.
We are thus looking at thick layer of ash, its surface shaped over eons by the winds of Mars’ thin atmosphere.
The white cross on the overview map to the right marks the location of this picture, about 250 miles north of where the rover Spirit had roamed.
A look at a wider MRO context camera image of this area only shows that this featureless terrain extends over a wide area. Traveling here would not only be difficult, but there would be few clear features to guide you. Getting lost without GPS would be very easy.
The full high resolution image however reveals that the orientation of the stucco terrain shifts suddenly by 90 degrees to the south, while to the north the knobs and dunelike features almost vanish entirely, leaving the ground relatively smooth and even more featureless. Why the ash field should change like this is a complete puzzle. Maybe some of what we are looking at is not ash but frozen lava. Maybe. I am guessing.
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.
Is it possible that the oblique terrain is a younger flow channeled by the terrain to the North? It appears that terrain is in the last stages of losing a geological layer, judging by the relatively small size and large number of the buttes.