Lava-Filled Craters

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Caption:

Released 12 June 2003

Craters and hills form high standing streamlined plateaus or islands in a channeled area. The plateaus are rounded in the upstream direction and taper to a point in the downstream direction, indicating that the direction of flow in this area was roughly south to north, or bottom to top. The channels appear to be filled with lava flow deposits that are raised above the channel in some areas. A lava flow diverges around a small streamlined hill near the bottom of the image and then merges again around the northern end of it. Near the top of the image is a crater with a breach on the east (right) side that allowed the lava to flow in, leaving a lobate, high standing deposit. The channels may have been formed by the lava flows that currently fill them or there may have been flow of liquid water that created them before the lava was emplaced.

Image information: VIS instrument. Latitude 16, Longitude 183 East (177 West). 19 meter/pixel resolution.

Note: this THEMIS visual image has not been radiometrically nor geometrically calibrated for this preliminary release. An empirical correction has been performed to remove instrumental effects. A linear shift has been applied in the cross-track and down-track direction to approximate spacecraft and planetary motion. Fully calibrated and geometrically projected images will be released through the Planetary Data System in accordance with Project policies at a later time.

Background Info:

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the 2001 Mars Odyssey mission for NASA's Office of Space Science, Washington, D.C. The Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) was developed by Arizona State University, Tempe, in collaboration with Raytheon Santa Barbara Remote Sensing. The THEMIS investigation is led by Dr. Philip Christensen at Arizona State University. Lockheed Martin Astronautics, Denver, is the prime contractor for the Odyssey project, and developed and built the orbiter. Mission operations are conducted jointly from Lockheed Martin and from JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.

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