NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Faulted Sedimentary Rocks

Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera

MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-770, 27 June 2004

NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems

This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)
image shows some of the layered, sedimentary
rock outcrops that occur in a crater located at
8°N, 7°W, in western Arabia Terra. Dark layers
and dark sand have enhanced the contrast of this
scene. In the upper half of the image, one can see
numerous lines that off-set the layers. These lines
are faults along which the rocks have broken and
moved. The regularity of layer thickness and
erosional expression are taken as evidence that the
crater in which these rocks occur might once have
been a lake. The image
covers an area about 1.9 km (1.2 mi) wide.
Sunlight illuminates the scene from the lower left.

Malin Space Science Systems and the California Institute of Technology
built the MOC using spare hardware from the Mars Observer mission.
MSSS operates the camera from its facilities in San Diego, California.
The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Mars Surveyor Operations Project
operates the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft with its industrial
partner, Lockheed Martin Astronautics, from facilities in Pasadena,
California and Denver, Colorado.