Mars Global Surveyor
Mars Orbiter Camera
Lyot Crater and Northern Deuteronilus Mensae
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-276, 31 January 2001
Martian "fretted terrain" occurs in regions
of buttes and mesas that stand at the erosional margin where
northern low-lying plains meet the higher-standing cratered uplands.
Found mostly in the mid-northern latitudes, some of the best examples
of fretted terrain occur in Deuteronilus Mensae.
Here, the interaction of the process that creates the mesas and buttes,
the processes that modify these surfaces after they form, and the relationship
of both of these processes with the "near-instantaneous" event
that formed the large crater Lyot, provide us places to look to decipher
this small but important piece of martian geological history. Part of that
effort requires us to acquire compositional information--from the
Mars Global Surveyor
Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES),
from the
Thermal Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (THEMIS)
and
Gamma Ray Spectrometer (GRS)
on the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission, and from color
images such as these taken by Mars Global Surveyor's Mars Orbiter Camera.
Subtle and not-so-subtle color variations seen in this composite of MOC
images M23-01279 and M23-01280 (acquired January 19, 2001) trace both the
movement of dark sand of possible volcanic origin and fresh, dark outcrops
of unweathered bedrock.
Image Credit: NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems
Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of
Technology built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer
mission. MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego,
CA. The Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Mars Surveyor Operations Project
operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial
partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena, CA
and Denver, CO.
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