Geomorphology of Gale Crater, Rock on! |
Geomorphology of Gale Crater, Rock on! |
Sep 26 2012, 10:22 PM
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#201
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
I'd like a discussion thread about the geology detatched from the time limits of current MSL threads. We had a 'Geomorphology of Cape York' thread that attracted a lot of interesting posts. How about 'Geomorphology of Gale Crater'? I have one or two ideas but many more questions, and I'd like to post them in a longer-running thread away from the day to day imaging discussion. Any other takers?
For starters, does anybody have a contour map of this place like the one at Meridiani with 5m intervals? ADMIN: You have your wishes fulfilled on UMSF (sometimes) |
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Dec 31 2016, 02:06 AM
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#202
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 1045 Joined: 17-February 09 Member No.: 4605 |
Basically a closed system I expect. One needs to pull back a bit to see the big picture. Aeolis Serpens to the NE of Gale is an inverted river complex over 500 kilometres long that spans a period somewhere between 1 to 20 million years with evidence of varying water and sediment supply and occasional desiccation. It would have terminated at the northern ocean and this would imply a shoreline to the north of Gale. Groundwater at Gale could reasonable be expected to reflect the level of the Northern ocean, creating a lake, while impact tsunami could also have overflowed the northern crater wall.
The problem is that empirical data from the rovers and orbiters prove an early warm wet Mars with a complex hydrological cycle spanning millions of years. No model of plausible environments can explain this. But Curiosity has a long way to climb and hopefully more clues will be found to help complete the jigsaw. |
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