This observation shows an approximately 6 kilometer diameter crater with gullies and interesting crater fill.

The crater fill may have formed from mass wasting (downward movement of material due to gravity) of ice-rich material. It is distinct from the walls of the crater, which is unusual. Often crater fill will take the form of concentric circles, suggesting that material has been transported down each wall similarly. This is not the case here.

There are two main sets of gullies, one deeply incised (left) next to one that is shallower (right). The gullies on the left are well developed and have likely experienced more flow than the gullies on the right. The well-developed gullies cross several wrinkles that wrap around much of the crater fill, indicating the gullies formed after the crater fill was in place. The gullies on the right (see subimage, approximately 750 meters across; 3000 x 2000, 6 MB) are shallow and narrow. Several have linear depressions above their sources suggesting that subsurface water flowing to the gully heads removed some material creating the collapse depressions seen here.
Written by: Kelly Kolb

All of the images produced by HiRISE and accessible on this site are within the public domain: there are no restrictions on their usage by anyone in the public, including news or science organizations. We do ask for a credit line where possible: Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

For information about NASA and agency programs on the Web, visit: http://www.nasa.gov. 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. Lockheed Martin Space Systems is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The HiRISE camera was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corporation and is operated by the University of Arizona. The image data were processed using the U.S. Geological Survey’s ISIS3 software.