the valles marineris system on mars is 4 000 km long the width of baltis vallis.
the valles marineris system on mars is 4 000 km long the width of baltis vallis.
the valles marineris system on mars is 4 000 km long the width of?
baltis vallis
the large canyon, valles marineris (latin for "mariner valleys", also known as agathadaemon in the old canal maps), has a length of and a depth of up to . the length of valles marineris is equivalent to the length of europe and extends across one-fifth the circumference of mars. by comparison, the grand canyon on earth is only long and nearly deep. valles marineris was formed due to the swelling of the tharsis area, which caused the crust in the area of valles marineris to collapse. in 2012, it was proposed that valles marineris is not just a graben, but a plate boundary where of transverse motion has occurred, making mars a planet with possibly a two-tectonic plate arrangement.
mars
further to the east, the canyon system runs into coprates chasma, which is very similar to ius and tithonium chasmata. coprates differs from ius in the eastern end which contains alluvial deposits and eolian material and like ius, has layered deposits, although the deposits in the coprates chasma are much more well defined. these deposits pre-date the valles marineris system, suggesting erosion and sedimentary processes later cut by the valles marineris system. newer data from mars global surveyor suggest that the origin of this layering is either just a succession of landslides, one over another, volcanic in origin, or it may be the bottom of a basin of either liquid or solid water ice suggesting that the peripheral canyons of the valles marineris system could have been at one time isolated lakes formed from erosional collapse. another possible source of the layered deposits could be wind-blown, but the diversity of the layers suggests that this material is not dominant. note that only the upper layers are thin, while the bottom layers are very big, suggesting that the lower layers were composed of mass wasted rock and the upper layers come from another source. some of this layering may have been transferred to the floor by landslides in which the layers are kept semi-intact, yet the layered section looks highly deformed with thickening and thinning beds that have multitudes of folds in them as seen in moc image #8405. this complex terrain could also be just eroded sediment from an ancient martian lake-bed and appear complex because all that we have is an aerial view like a geologic map and not enough elevation data to see if the beds are horizontal.
valles marineris