HiPOD: Saturday, 25 July 2020
Jumbled Terrain in Ius Chasma

Jumbled Terrain in Ius Chasma
This HiRISE image shows a mixture of bright and dark units. The bright units have a mineral called sulfate (salty sulfuric acid) that on Earth typically forms in the presence of water as an evaporite.

The brighter sulfates appear jumbled and folded, sometimes with sharp edges, inside a darker matrix of material. Either the sulfates were deposited this way, such as from a landslide that mixed and messed them up inside the darker material, or the sulfate was disrupted after it was deposited, perhaps from tectonic activity that broke it apart and folded it.

ID: ESP_023398_1725
date: 24 July 2011
altitude: 264 km

https://uahirise.org/hipod/ESP_023398_1725
NASA/JPL-Caltech/UArizona
#Mars #science #NASA

Black & white is less than 5 km across; enhanced color is less than 1 km. For full observation details, visit the ID link.