U-shaped meandering Martian ridge
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on December 3, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label a “Broad U-Shaped Ridge”. The two black squares are merely areas where no data was gathered.
Is this a fossilized river, of which scientists have identified more than 10,000 in the Arabia Terra transition region between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands? Arabia Terra however is literally on the other side of Mars, very far away.
The location, as shown in the overview map below, instead suggests that, if this U-shaped meander is a fossilized river, it isn’t one created by water or ice.
The white dot marks the location, nestled in an area surrounded by the gigantic volcanic ash field called the Medusae Fossae Formation, inside what I label Mars’ volcano country, the vast volcanic flood plains between the Red Planet’s giant volcanoes and covering almost one third of the planet’s equatorial regions.
This ridge is located about 300 miles south of the Athabasca Valles lava flood plain, thought to be the youngest on Mars.
A look at a wider context camera image from MRO shows that this ridge extends to the north and south, zig-zag sharply back and forth while also thinning and then widening precipitously as it heads north and south.
Based on what little information presented here, my guess is that this is a frozen lava flow, that in the past drained along a canyon whose walls on either side have since eroded away. In this sense it is a fossilized river, but of lava instead of the suspected fossilized water/ice rivers of Arabia Terra on the other side of the planet.
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
Cool image time! The photo to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on December 3, 2021 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). It shows what the scientists label a “Broad U-Shaped Ridge”. The two black squares are merely areas where no data was gathered.
Is this a fossilized river, of which scientists have identified more than 10,000 in the Arabia Terra transition region between the northern lowland plains and the southern cratered highlands? Arabia Terra however is literally on the other side of Mars, very far away.
The location, as shown in the overview map below, instead suggests that, if this U-shaped meander is a fossilized river, it isn’t one created by water or ice.
The white dot marks the location, nestled in an area surrounded by the gigantic volcanic ash field called the Medusae Fossae Formation, inside what I label Mars’ volcano country, the vast volcanic flood plains between the Red Planet’s giant volcanoes and covering almost one third of the planet’s equatorial regions.
This ridge is located about 300 miles south of the Athabasca Valles lava flood plain, thought to be the youngest on Mars.
A look at a wider context camera image from MRO shows that this ridge extends to the north and south, zig-zag sharply back and forth while also thinning and then widening precipitously as it heads north and south.
Based on what little information presented here, my guess is that this is a frozen lava flow, that in the past drained along a canyon whose walls on either side have since eroded away. In this sense it is a fossilized river, but of lava instead of the suspected fossilized water/ice rivers of Arabia Terra on the other side of the planet.
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
Can it be called an Oxbow ?
Ox wonders.