Inverted Meandering Rivers at a Possible Future Mars Landing Site
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Inverted Meandering Rivers at a Possible Future Mars Landing Site
ESP_021728_1740  Science Theme: 
This image contains interesting examples of crosscutting, sinuous and straight ridges. The ridge in the lower left of the image (orange) has gradual bends and well-defined positive relief, while the ridge in the upper right (blue) exhibits a degree of high sinuosity. Both ridges may be ancient river deposits.

In the southern part of the image, there are also possible cut bank and point bar deposition scars (green), but these do not possess visible positive relief. Although lacking relief, the sinuosity of these scars implies an ancient, mature, and low-gradient meandering river. The upper right ridge exhibits a sinuous geometry with positive relief reminiscent of a mature meandering river. Cementation of by underground fluids may have given the river deposits a higher resistance to erosion compared to the surrounding flood plain. Subsequent weathering removed the deposits in the flood plain, leaving behind the river channel positive relief.

Offsets of the lower left ridge along possible fault scarps (red) suggest that the area was cut by faults either during or after deposition of the river deposits. There also appears to be a less pronounced fault at the terminus of the upper right ridge.



Written by: Hayden Smith and Marjorie A. Chan  (25 November 2015)
 
Acquisition date
16 March 2011

Local Mars time
15:02

Latitude (centered)
-5.716°

Longitude (East)
153.505°

Spacecraft altitude
268.3 km (166.8 miles)

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from 26.9 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) to 53.7 cm/pixel (with 2 x 2 binning)

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25 cm/pixel and North is up

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Equirectangular

Emission angle
1.2°

Phase angle
46.5°

Solar incidence angle
48°, with the Sun about 42° above the horizon

Solar longitude
255.6°, Northern Autumn

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North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  337.1°
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POSTSCRIPT
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona.