Floor of Kasei Valles
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Floor of Kasei Valles
PSP_001456_2010  Science Theme: Volcanic Processes
This HiRISE image shows a wonderfully complex surface on the floor of this ancient flood-carved canyon.

In this area, the water flowed from the west to the east. However, the floor does not show the kinds of landforms scientist expect from flood erosion. Instead, the floor of the valley has been covered, sometime after the flood, by some kind of flow with giant ridged plates.

Some of the plates are more than a kilometer across. The ridges appear to have formed when the solid crust on the flow was crumpled during flow. The plates are pieces of the crust that had rafted apart. Very large lava flows can produce this kind of surface, but ice and frozen mud are also capable of forming similar features.



Written by: Laszlo Kestay  (13 December 2006)
 
Acquisition date
17 November 2006

Local Mars time
15:27

Latitude (centered)
20.669°

Longitude (East)
287.205°

Spacecraft altitude
280.2 km (174.2 miles)

Original image scale range
from 28.0 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) to 56.1 cm/pixel (with 2 x 2 binning)

Map projected scale
25 cm/pixel and North is up

Map projection
Equirectangular

Emission angle
0.2°

Phase angle
49.0°

Solar incidence angle
49°, with the Sun about 41° above the horizon

Solar longitude
136.9°, Northern Summer

For non-map projected images
North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  10.4°
JPEG
Black and white
map projected  non-map

IRB color
map projected  non-map

Merged IRB
map projected

Merged RGB
map projected

RGB color
non-map projected

JP2
Black and white
map-projected   (343MB)

IRB color
map-projected   (196MB)

JP2 EXTRAS
Black and white
map-projected  (157MB)
non-map           (141MB)

IRB color
map projected  (42MB)
non-map           (167MB)

Merged IRB
map projected  (100MB)

Merged RGB
map-projected  (96MB)

RGB color
non map           (158MB)
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
B&W label
Color label
Merged IRB label
Merged RGB label
EDR products
HiView

NB
IRB: infrared-red-blue
RGB: red-green-blue
About color products (PDF)

Black & white is 5 km across; enhanced color about 1 km
For scale, use JPEG/JP2 black & white map-projected images

USAGE POLICY
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:
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona

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.