Lava Flow Oozing into a Crater
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Lava Flow Oozing into a Crater
ESP_024587_1465  Science Theme: Volcanic Processes
This image captures a fairly rare situation. In general, as lava flows along, it fills in low points and holes it encounters in its path and flows around high points such as hills and ridges. In this image there are two lava flows interacting with an impact crater.

Although an impact crater approximately 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) wide such as this is a deep hole in the ground (likely a couple hundred meters or several hundred feet deep), it is surrounded by a rim crest that is actually higher than the surrounding terrain, lifted up during the powerful impact that formed the crater originally. On the south side of the crater, a smooth-surfaced lava flow (with some knobs in the southwest) has come in contact with the exterior of the crater rim, burying any sign of ejecta from the crater and covering most of the rim, almost up to the rim crest.

However, because the height of the crater rim was slightly greater than the thickness of the lava flow, the crater rim acted like a wall and prevented the deep crater from being overrun and filled with the lava. Later, however, a different, younger, heavily ridged lava flow approached the crater from the north—the thickness of this ridged lava flow is visible along its flow front in the eastern part of the image. Unlike the earlier flow, the ridged flow overtopped the crater’s northeast rim, and a single lobe of lava is descending to the floor of the crater. If the rim had been any lower, or if the lava had advanced any further, the crater would have been filled and buried and we would not be lucky enough to see this snapshot of the dramatic interaction of lava with this crater.

By studying how lava reacts to obstacles and to variation in slope, like this lobe falling down the crater's inside wall, scientists may be able to learn about the thickness, viscosity (or stickiness), and strength of the lava flow, which in turn could help constrain the composition and temperature of the lava.

Written by: Patrick Russell  (31 October 2011)

This is a stereo pair with ESP_024877_1465.
 
Acquisition date
25 October 2011

Local Mars time
14:34

Latitude (centered)
-33.260°

Longitude (East)
222.689°

Spacecraft altitude
253.3 km (157.4 miles)

Original image scale range
25.6 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) so objects ~77 cm across are resolved

Map projected scale
25 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
7.9°

Phase angle
61.3°

Solar incidence angle
56°, with the Sun about 34° above the horizon

Solar longitude
20.2°, Northern Spring

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North azimuth:  96°
Sub-solar azimuth:  46.9°
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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.