Scroll down to read this post.

 

Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. I keep the website clean from pop-ups and annoying demands. Instead, I depend entirely on my readers to support me. Though this means I am sacrificing some income, it also means that I remain entirely independent from outside pressure. By depending solely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, no one can threaten me with censorship. You don't like what I write, you can simply go elsewhere.

 

You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are five 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:

4. A Paypal subscription:


5. 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. And if you buy the books through the ebookit links, I get a larger cut and I get it sooner.


Twisted and tilted bedrock in Martian crater

tilted strata in Martin Crater
Click for full image.

Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated cropped, and reduced to post here, is only a small example of the strangely tilted and twisted strata in the central peak region of 38-mile-wide Martin Crater on Mars. The full image shows more.

The picture was taken on January 12, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). The section I’ve cropped out shows a series of stratified strata that are are not only significantly tipped from the horizontal, but have also been bent and deformed.

The crater itself is located about 260 miles south of Valles Marineris, as shown on the overview map below.

Overview map

The white box in Martin Crater indicates the location of the above photo. It covers most of the central peak of this crater.

What caused these bedding planes to get tilted and twisted as we see them? And were they shaped this way before or after the impact that created the crater? The two features in the overview map that make me think these strata existed this way before the impact are the various north-south trending ridges and east-west cracks seen throughout this region. They suggest that this plateau south of Valles Marineris was at one point squeezed in an east-west direction, producing the ridges, as well as stretched in a north-south direction, producing the cracks. Such pushing and pulling could have also tilted and twisted the rock strata in Martin Crater.

Though this is a wild guess, it appears based on this paper on the geology of this region to be reasonable, though there remain many uncertainties and questions about that conclusion.

All we really know is that some big geological event in the far past reshaped this terrain, massively. The strata inside Martin Crater gives us an impressive peak at that event.

Genesis cover

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 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

2 comments

  • Lee Stevenson

    This is certainly one of the best “cool images”, and surely a candidate for a “what the heck” image! I keep looking at the cliffs on the lower left of the full image, and then at the 90°inverted strata so close by…. And at so lower depth…. What the heck could cause such a massive distortion without destroying the strata? The distortions seem to have circular patterns, so probs crater related… But how? My only thought is perhaps relating to an ice and rock mix in the bedrock being more flexible than just pure rock? I can look at a sedimentary rock layer on earth and have a decent guess how it ended up that way…. Looking at this just makes me confused!!

  • Lee: Another explanation for this strata just occurred to me. If you look at the wider MRO context camera image (available here), it is clear that this feature is at the crater’s central peak, though that central peak appears to have been worn away.

    Maybe we are seeing the base of that peak, the rest long gone because of wind and maybe even ice erosion. The vertical twisted strata we see would make sense for the central peak of an impact crater.

Readers: the rules for commenting!

 

No registration is required. I welcome all opinions, even those that strongly criticize my commentary.

 

However, name-calling and obscenities will not be tolerated. First time offenders who are new to the site will be warned. Second time offenders or first time offenders who have been here awhile will be suspended for a week. After that, I will ban you. Period.

 

Note also that first time commenters as well as any comment with more than one link will be placed in moderation for my approval. Be patient, I will get to it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *