Gullies in Trough near Gorgonum Chaos
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
Gullies in Trough near Gorgonum Chaos
PSP_002014_1415  Science Theme: Geologic Contacts/Stratigraphy
This image shows gullies in a trough that is near Gorgonum Chaos, a region filled with gullies.

The trough gullies, like many of the gullies on nearby Gorgonum Chaos mesas, appear to originate at a distinct layer. There are mounds within the trough that have layers exposed near their peaks. The layers in the mound (see subimage,) and on the trough walls are resistant, meaning they do not break up mostly into small particles that the wind can easily carry away.

Instead, they are breaking up into boulders up to several meters wide that HiRISE can see. (The fact that the layers are eroding as boulders tells us that the material is not easily broken up into smaller and smaller pieces, so it is therefore termed "resistant to erosion.") However, it is not completely resistant to erosion as we can see by the boulders rolling down the slopes.

Gullies are thought by many to require liquid water to form. A major debate is whether this water comes from the surface (i.e., melting surface ice or melting snow) or the subsurface (i.e., from an aquifer). Gullies are often found to originate at layers, like those seen here. The subsurface water theory states that water travels under the surface to slope faces where it flows down the slope to form gullies. Visible layers are suggested to be impermeable, such that water cannot penetrate them, which is why the gullies originate from beneath the layers.

Often gullies will originate between layers, which suggests that there is a permeable layer trapped between impermeable layers. It is also possible that the layer preferentially traps ice or snow that may melt to form gullies, thus providing a surface source of water to form the gullies.

Please note that the stripe-like features on the left side of the image are camera artifacts and not real features.



Written by: Kelly Kolb  (25 April 2007)
 
Acquisition date
31 December 2006

Local Mars time
15:48

Latitude (centered)
-38.195°

Longitude (East)
188.770°

Spacecraft altitude
253.3 km (157.4 miles)

Original image scale range
from 25.6 cm/pixel (with 1 x 1 binning) to 51.2 cm/pixel (with 2 x 2 binning)

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25 cm/pixel and North is up

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Equirectangular

Emission angle
7.3°

Phase angle
65.3°

Solar incidence angle
71°, with the Sun about 19° above the horizon

Solar longitude
159.1°, Northern Summer

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North azimuth:  97°
Sub-solar azimuth:  34.5°
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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.