Olympus Mons Mensa - Interesting Feature

[Bozola]

20050315a



Probably a weirdly eroding layer. I wonder what it is?

[Tacitus]

Looks like the older rock below is covered either by a different type of rock strata or perhaps deep regolith (soil, dirt, etc). A difference in hardness can produce the different erosion patterns you can see as you head down the slopes. A cool photo nonetheless.

[John Kierein]

looks like an artifact to me.
What's the source?

[Bozola]

looks like an artifact to me.
What's the source?

--edited--Sorry, misinterpreted that. Artifact as "photo artifact", not product of intelligence. It shows up nice and consistant in the JPG and TIF.

This is a geological feature having to do with two layers with sharply different erosional rates. I would guess that the lower material is probably a tuff of some variety, considering where this is.

Look to the link at the top for the source.

[JohnD]

What about the "two wheeled tracks" in the surface, just beyond the scree slopes below the escarpment (towards top of pic)???

No, I don't mean it, but what are they?

John

[frogesque]

Is there a larger context picture? Some of that looks kind of like a raised beach (or fallen sea level) to me with sediment covering the bottom features. Kind of how I imagine the North Sea would look after someone took the plug out.

[Bozola]

Is there a larger context picture? Some of that looks kind of like a raised beach (or fallen sea level) to me with sediment covering the bottom features. Kind of how I imagine the North Sea would look after someone took the plug out.

It certainly wouldn't look like that at 19meters per pixel.

Follow the link at the top.

[Torsten]

Here's an interpretation: Those drainage-like features look like very steep gullies that have been eroded by water. The gullies end on what appears to be the flat terrain of a basin. What is missing from this picture is a prominent alluvial fan where each gully meets the basin. But if the basin had been filled with water, and the shoreline was steep, and if the eroded material was fine-grained, then much of the material would have stayed in suspension to settle out more-or-less uniformly over the whole basin.

Therefore I think the feature is a steep slope that was once submerged in water, and the relatively flat-appearing area that has the same shade and texture is the bottom of the basin that held the water.

In the original image linked by Bozola, which provides more context, there are hints of alluvial fans, especially in the northeast part of the basin (assuming north is up), but they seem very subdued. Could wind have rearranged them over the eons? Maybe, but I'm inclined to think that they are remnants of fans that were created early in the erosive process, before the water that collected in the basin reached its greatest depth.

[JonClarke]

For those who want to know the context, these is a small mesa just to the west of the western scarp of Olympus Mons. It is almost certainly part of the Olympus Mons volcanic pile left behind by scarp retreat.

Jon