Layers, Dunes and Cliffs in Hydrae Chasma
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Layers, Dunes and Cliffs in Hydrae Chasma
ESP_029516_1730  Science Theme: Mass Wasting Processes
Hydrae Chasma is a deep, circular depression approximately 50 kilometers across, situated between Juventae Chasma to the north and the large canyon system Valles Marineris to the south. The chasma has steep walls flanked by numerous landslides and a massive scarp along its southern boundary where the surface has collapsed into this depression.

This closeup is of an isolated flat-topped mountain (known as a mesa) rising out of a sea of dunes located in the center of Hydrae Chasma. Darker-toned dunes, likely composed of basaltic sands, form an apron along the base of the mesa’s northern margin. The western side of the mesa is gently sloping and is composed of a highly fractured light-toned rubbly base. It is overlaid by alternating light and dark layered cliff-forming units and is covered by a sediment cap containing still more dunes.

The layered sequences are present only in the interior deposits and not in the walls of the chasma. Similar deposits are located on the floors of Valles Marineris and other chasmata and may be the sediment remnants of ancient lakes formed within these canyon systems.

Written by: Ginny Gulick  (12 December 2012)
 
Acquisition date
12 November 2012

Local Mars time
15:39

Latitude (centered)
-6.825°

Longitude (East)
297.987°

Spacecraft altitude
261.6 km (162.6 miles)

Original image scale range
26.9 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~81 cm across are resolved

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25 cm/pixel and North is up

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Equirectangular

Emission angle
8.5°

Phase angle
45.9°

Solar incidence angle
54°, with the Sun about 36° above the horizon

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205.5°, Northern Autumn

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North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  357.0°
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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.