This image shows a prominent "wrinkle" ridge in Hesperia Planum, northwest of the Hellas basin and adjacent to Tyrrhena Patera.

Wrinkle ridges are linear to arcuate positive relief features with a broad arch topped by a crenulated ridge. These features have been identified on many planets such as the Moon, Mars, Mercury, and Venus. On Mars, they are many tens to hundreds of kilometers long, tens of kilometers wide, and up to several hundred meters high. Wrinkle ridges are believed to have formed by horizontal compression or shortening of the crust from faulting.

Locations of wrinkle ridges and faulted surfaces on Mars may be possible sites for paleo-spring formation where fluid along these faults may have leaked out. The area alongside such faults on Earth have a "bleached" appearance where salts have precipitated onto the surface as the water-soaked surface dried out over time. Such examples of fault-related fluid flow have been found in places on Earth, and possibly on Mars (see "Fracture-Controlled Paleo-Fluid Flow in Candor Chasma, Mars", Science, v. 315, 2007).



Written by: Maria Banks  (5 July 2007)


This is a stereo pair with PSP_003665_1590.