lfenton

December 4, 2017

Ripples of rock

A Piece of Mars: To the upper right of this 0.85×0.6 km (0.53×0.37 mi) scene is a flat-lying plain strewn with large ripples. To the lower left is a rugged hill with gray rock laced with white veins (this might […]
November 27, 2017

The corpse of a dune

A Piece of Mars: The rippled darker patch in this 600×600 m (0.37×0.37 mi) scene is the former site of a sand dune. This is one of a few “dune corpses” found just upwind of a dune field in Holden […]
November 20, 2017

Is it windblown or not (#2)?

A Piece of Mars: This 0.93×1.25 km (0.57×0.78 mi) scene shows what I’m starting to think are windblown features. I posted something similar to this once before, from a location not that far from here. In this one region of […]
November 15, 2017

Overhang

A Piece of Mars: There’s a fabric of erosion in this 1×1 km (0.62×0.62 mi) scene, with the main wind blowing from lower right to upper left (and if you look carefully you’ll see there’s a second, subtler fabric a […]
November 8, 2017

Island in the stream

A Piece of Mars: In the floor of what might have been an old fluvial channel there are a bunch of really neat dunes (or maybe ripples, they’re TARs and we don’t know yet what they are). One spire pokes […]
November 6, 2017

Black and tan

A Piece of Mars: Dunes in the top row in this 0.73×0.47 km (0.46×0.29 mi) scene are dark but those in the lower row are brighter. Why? They’re all probably made out of the same kind of sand, which is […]
October 30, 2017

Mars’ corduory

A Piece of Mars: The wind on Mars likes to make textiles (unfortunately the term geotextiles is already taken for other purposes). This 1×0.6 km (0.62×0.37 mi) scene shows two different sets of ripples. The larger set has straight to […]
October 23, 2017

Just do it

A Piece of Mars: It’s all about wind scour here in this 0.75×0.75 km (0.47×0.47 mi) view. The big “swoop” is an erosional channel dug into the surface by winds (blowing from the lower left) trying to erode the hills […]
October 9, 2017

Wavy dunes and straight dunes

A Piece of Mars: The dunes here are ~40 m (131 ft) apart and ~200 m (219 yd) long. (They’re not really dunes, but rather a windblown thing nearly unique to Mars that we call TARs.) Look carefully and you’ll […]