Cool image time! The picture to the right, cropped and sharpened to post here, was taken on July 2, 2025 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO).

Labeled simply as “wavy terrain” by the MRO science team, it shows a relatively flat plain with of hollows and terraced ridges that suggest the prevailing winds come from the west-southwest. As they blow, they slowly cause the layers of material to peel away, exposing those terraces.

This wavy landscape extends for many miles to the west, covering a region 135 by 160 miles in area. The layering and wavy nature of the terrain suggests the material here is fragile and easily peeled away by the winds of Mars’ very thin atmosphere. Think of the sandstone that forms Monument Valley and Canyonlands in the southwest United States, shaped almost entirely by wind.

And in fact, the overview map below confirms this.

The red dot near the center of the overview map to the right marks the location, deep within the Medusae Fossae Formation, the largest volcanic ash field on Mars and thought to be the source of much of the Martian dust seen across the entire planet. The white outline indicates the size of this wavy region, with the above picture located on the western edge of wavy landscape. To the west the layers disappear to expose frozen flood lava. The east the layers rise upward to become a high featureless dome of ash.

The blue and orange colors on the map indicate areas below this ash field that scientists using Europe’s Mars Express orbiter believe they have detected very large and extensive deposits of buried ice to depths of one to two thousand feet. Located in the dry Martian tropics, where no near surface ice has been detected, this deep underground ice could be of great value to future settlers, if they can dig down to reach it.