NASA Mars Picture of the Day: Severely-Dipping Layers
Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera
MGS MOC Release No. MOC2-1180, 11 August 2005
 NASA/JPL/Malin Space Science Systems |
This Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) image shows severely tilted–dipping–layered rocks in Oudemans Crater in the Valles Marineris region of Mars. The rocks have a light tone and are somewhat broken-up by faults. These rocks were deposited in flat-lying layers. Sometime later, Oudemans Crater formed by meteor impact. When that occurred, rocks that were underneath the site of the impact were uplifted and tilted by the force of the impact. The light tone and repeated nature of some of the layers suggests that these may be sedimentary rocks. |
Location near: 10.2°S, 92.0°W |
Image width: ~3 km (~1.9 mi) |
Illumination from: lower left |
Season: Southern Spring |
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.
