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TOPIC: Mars geology
Blobrana


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RE: Mars geology
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Martian opal points to ancient water
Rock formations could suggest places to look for lifes traces
Mars may have been wet for a billion years longer than previously thought, new water-related opal evidence from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter suggests. The findings have implications for the possibility that Mars once supported life.

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Blobrana


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The crater-counting system that scientists have used since the 1970s to determine the age of large geologic features on Mars will also allow them to date small and more recent features, such as riverbeds and lava flows.
Crater counting relies on the density, or crowding, of craters to determine the age of planetary surfaces.
It works on the assumption that older landforms have been exposed for a longer periods and have been hit by more meteorites than younger surfaces.
While the method is widely recognised as valid for large, miles-wide craters, some scientists had questioned whether the rate at which small craters form is well enough understood and constant enough to be trusted in predicting the age of a landform.
 
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Blobrana


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Fluvial deposits on Mars
High-resolution mapping of planet surfaces (including Earth) from orbiting spacecraft is revealing the beauty and complexity of erosional and depositional landforms. The better resolution (in some cases sub-meter) allows researchers to gain a more comprehensive appreciation of the scales of features. Images from space provide the large-scale context while also revealing intricate details.

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Blobrana


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Mangala Fossae
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The High Resolution Stereo Camera obtained images of the Mangala Fossae trough, a system of outflow channels on Mars that bears evidence of lava deposition and catastrophic floods.
 Mangala Fossae lies at approximately 17° south and 213° east. The region is approximately 1000 km long, located south-west of the volcanic region Tharsis, where the highest known volcano in the Solar System, Olympus Mons, is located. The images were obtained on 21 March 2007. 

Mangala Fossae
Credits: ESA/ DLR/ FU Berlin (G. Neukum)
  HI-RES JPEG (Size: 1904 kb)  HI-RES TIFF (Size: 65 376 kb)
spacer.gif

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Blobrana


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RE: Martian Geology
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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Reveals Rock Fracture Plumbing on Mars

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Blobrana


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Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Reveals Rock Fracture Plumbing on Mars
NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has revealed hundreds of small fractures exposed on the Martian surface that billions of years ago directed flows of water through underground Martian sandstone.

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Blobrana


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Ancient water sites for next rover
The next Mars rover could end up down in the delta if a group of geologists and astrobiologists get their way.
The Mars science community has ranked a landing site called Eberswalde Crater as the most tantalising destination for the Mars Science Laboratory (MSL), the US$2-billion rover that is due to launch in 2009. The crater seems to contain the remnants of a meandering river that spilled into a lake more than 3 billion years ago and piled up delta sediments a prime target for MSL's instruments and their search for past or current microbial life. "If you go to any lake bed on Earth, that's where you find fossils," says James Rice, an astrogeologist at Arizona State University in Tempe who is a chief advocate for the site.

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Blobrana


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RE: Martian Geology
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The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), carried by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is helping scientists make leaps forward in understanding both the ongoing and ancient processes that shaped the surface of Mars.
A study of the nature and distribution of ancient megabreccia, led by Professor Alfred McEwen, HiRISEs Principal Investigator, suggests that this bedrock was formed during the late heavy bombardment period.
Megabreccia consists of angular, randomly-orientated blocks that formed suddenly in energetic events such as meteorite impacts. It is thought to contain fragments of the oldest and deepest bedrock exposed on the surface of Mars.

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Blobrana


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A study of the nature of ancient martian megabreccia
The unprecedented image quality of the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) carried by NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is helping scientists make leaps forward in understanding both the ongoing and ancient processes that shaped the surface of Mars.
Professor Alfred McEwen, HiRISEs Principal Investigator, will be highlighting some of the most recent results at the European Planetary Science Congress in Münster on Wednesday 24th September.
A study of the nature and distribution of ancient megabreccia, led by McEwen at the University of Arizona, suggests that this bedrock was formed during the late heavy bombardment period.  Megabreccia consists of angular, randomly-orientated blocks that formed suddenly in energetic events such as meteorite impacts. It is thought to contain fragments of the oldest and deepest bedrock exposed on the surface of Mars.   

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-- Edited by Blobrana at 12:28, 2008-09-24

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Blobrana


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RE: Mars geology
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Some of the gullies that cut the sides of Martian craters were likely formed by mel****er from glaciers that existed a few million years ago, when Mars was wetter than it is now, a new study suggests.

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