Some say Mars's northern valley formed in fire, some say in ice: now curious spirals on the floor of the valley have been glimpsed - and hold with those who favour fire. The Athabasca Valles region, a channelled and scabbed valley just north of the red planet's equator, was clearly carved by floods of fluid coursing through it tens of millions of years ago. But, in a beautiful echo of the apocalyptic poem "Fire and Ice" by American poet Robert Frost, no one had been able to work out whether that fluid was water or molten lava. Read more
ASU grad student discovers new form of lava flow on Mars
High-resolution photos of lava flows on Mars reveal coiling spiral patterns that resemble snail or nautilus shells. Such patterns have been found in a few locations on Earth, but never before on Mars. The discovery, made by Arizona State University graduate student Andrew Ryan, is announced in a paper published April 27, 2012, in the scientific journal Science. The new result came out of research into possible interactions of lava flows and floods of water in the Elysium volcanic province of Mars Read more
This video provides zoom and pan moves to emphasise the context and features of a Martian valley named Athabasca Valles, perhaps the youngest outflow channel on Mars. The detailed view comes from an image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 4, 2007.
This video provides zoom and pan moves to emphasise the context and features of a Martian valley named Athabasca Valles, perhaps the youngest outflow channel on Mars. The detailed view comes from an image taken by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter on April 4, 2007. Features in this and other images reveal that Athabasca Valles is entirely draped by a thin layer of lava. This requires that a fissure eruption fed a large volume of lava through the channels in geologically recent times. Most of the scene is covered by dust, but a few areas appear blue (in exaggerated colour) where rocks and sand are exposed.