Texas A&M University
Department of Oceanography
Sojourner ®, Mars Rover ® and spacecraft design and images © copyright 1996-97, California Institute of Technology. All rights reserved. Further reproduction prohibited.
Valles Marineris:A plateau and surrounding steep slopes within the Valles Marineris, the large system of canyons that stretches 4,000 kilometers along the equator of Mars. The far right context image is a mosaic, and the white rectangle represents the location of the higher resolution image to its left, which is 9 by 17 kilometers.
The highest terrain in the image is the relatively smooth plateau near the center. Slopes descend to the north and south (upper and lower part of image, respectively) in broad, debris-filled gullies with intervening rocky spurs.
Multiple rock layers, varying from a few to a few tens of meters thick, are visible in the steep slopes on the spurs and gullies. Layered rocks on Earth form from sedimentary processes (such as those that formed the layered rocks now seen in Arizona's Grand Canyon) and volcanic processes (such as layering seen in the Waimea Canyon on the island of Kauai). Both origins are possible for the Martian layered rocks seen in this image. In either case, the total thickness of the layered rocks seen in this image implies a complex and extremely active early history for geologic processes on Mars.
Channels
on Bakhuysen Crater Wall :
Channels on the wall of Bakhuysen crater are the best examples of integrated drainage like drainage systems on Earth. The pattern is topographically controlled; the relationships emphasized by light-colored sediments.
The crater rim is marked by a cliff running diagonally in the middle left to upper right of the image. No channels are outside the crater rim, suggesting that the source of the fluid was confined within the crater.
http://oceanography.tamu.edu/Quarterdeck/1999/1/morse_valleys.html
© Copyright 1999, Department
of Oceanography, Texas A&M University.
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