Gallery
MOLA maps showing the geographic context of Argyre.
MOLA map showing boundaries for Argyre Planitia and other regions
Map showing locations Uzboi Vallis and Ladon Vallis, other nearby features
The Uzboi-Landon-Morava (ULM) outflow system is a long series of channels and depressions that may have carried water across a major part of Mars. It starts with channels that drain into the Argyre basin in the Argyre quadrangle. Water ponded in the Argyre basin, then the overflow is believed to have traveled northward through Uzboi Vallis, into Landon basin, through Morava Valles, to the floor of Margaritifer basin. [1] [2] [3] Some of the water may have helped to carve Ares Vallis. [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] Altogether, the total area drained for this watershed may have been about 11 X 106 km2 or about 9% of Mars. [9] [10]
Pictures below show the Argyre basin which was once full of water. Also, the wider view shows the distance the water traveled, which was south of Argyre basin to Margaritifer Terra.
Utopia Planitia is a large plain within Utopia, the largest recognized impact basin on Mars and in the Solar System with an estimated diameter of 3300 km. It is the Martian region where the Viking 2 lander touched down and began exploring on September 3, 1976, and the Zhurong rover touched down on 14 May, 2021, as a part of the Tianwen-1 mission. It is located at the antipode of Argyre Planitia, centered at 46.7°N 117.5°E. It is also in the Casius quadrangle, Amenthes quadrangle, and the Cebrenia quadrangle of Mars.
Vallis or valles is the Latin word for valley. It is used in planetary geology to name landform features on other planets.
Hellas Planitia is a plain located within the huge, roughly circular impact basin Hellas located in the southern hemisphere of the planet Mars. Hellas is the third- or fourth-largest known impact crater in the Solar System. The basin floor is about 7,152 m (23,465 ft) deep, 3,000 m (9,800 ft) deeper than the Moon's South Pole-Aitken basin, and extends about 2,300 km (1,400 mi) east to west. It is centered at 42.4°S 70.5°E. Hellas Planitia spans the boundary between the Hellas quadrangle and the Noachis quadrangle.
Argyre Planitia is a plain located within the impact basin Argyre in the southern highlands of Mars. Its name comes from a map produced by Giovanni Schiaparelli in 1877; it refers to Argyre, a mythical island of silver in Greek mythology.
Holden is a 140 km wide crater situated within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) region of the planet Mars, located with the southern highlands. It is named after American astronomer Edward Singleton Holden. It is part of the Uzboi-Landon-Morava (ULM) system.
Uzboi Vallis is a valley lying situated within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) region on Mars. It is named after the Uzboy dry channel, now in Turkmenistan, which repeatedly served as the main channel of the Amu Darya river. The valley begins on the northern rim of the Argyre basin, and cuts through several craters, before ending at Holden crater.
Ares Vallis is an outflow channel on Mars, named after the Greek name for Mars: Ares, the god of war; it appears to have been carved by fluids, perhaps water. The valley 'flows' northwest out of the hilly Margaritifer Terra, where the Iani Chaos depression 180 km (110 mi) long and 200 km (120 mi) wide) is connected to the beginning of Ares Vallis by a 100 km (62 mi) wide transition zone centered on 342.5° East and 3° North. It then continues through the ancient Xanthe Terra highlands, and ends in a delta-like region of Chryse Planitia. Ares Vallis was the landing site of NASA's Mars Pathfinder spacecraft, which studied a region of the valley near the border with Chryse in 1997.
Amazonis Planitia is one of the smoothest plains on Mars. It is located between the Tharsis and Elysium volcanic provinces, to the west of Olympus Mons, in the Amazonis and Memnonia quadrangles, centered at 24.8°N 196.0°E. The plain's topography exhibits extremely smooth features at several different lengths of scale. A large part of the Medusae Fossae Formation lies in Amazonis Planitia.
The Memnonia quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Memnonia quadrangle is also referred to as MC-16.
Margaritifer Terra is an ancient, heavily cratered region of Mars. It is centered just south of the Martian equator at 4.9°S 25°W and covers 2600 km at its widest extent. The area reveals "chaos terrain", outflow channels, and alluvial plains that are indicative of massive flooding. Wind erosion patterns are also in evidence. A region within the terra shows some of the highest valley network densities on the planet. Ares Vallis is another notable feature, where the flood and flow patterns are in evidence; it was the landing site of the Soviet Mars 6 lander and NASA's Mars Pathfinder. It is also one of several proposed landing sites for the Mars 2020 Rover.
The Lunae Palus quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The quadrangle is also referred to as MC-10. Lunae Planum and parts of Xanthe Terra and Chryse Planitia are found in the Lunae Palus quadrangle. The Lunae Palus quadrangle contains many ancient river valleys.
The Coprates quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Coprates quadrangle is also referred to as MC-18. The Coprates quadrangle contains parts of many of the old classical regions of Mars: Sinai Planum, Solis Planum, Thaumasia Planum, Lunae Planum, Noachis Terra, and Xanthe Terra.
The Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle is also referred to as MC-19. The Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle covers the area from 0° to 45° west longitude and 0° to 30° south latitude on Mars. Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle contains Margaritifer Terra and parts of Xanthe Terra, Noachis Terra, Arabia Terra, and Meridiani Planum.
The Argyre quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Argyre quadrangle is also referred to as MC-26. It contains Argyre Planitia and part of Noachis Terra.
Nirgal Vallis is a long river channel bordering the Coprates quadrangle and Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle of Mars at 28.4° south latitude and 42° west longitude. It is 610 km long and is named after Nergal, the Babylonian god of war and counterpart to the Roman god of war Mars. Nirgal Vallis had a discharge of 4800 cubic meters/second. The western half of Nirgal Valles is a branched system, but the eastern half is a tightly sinuous, deeply entrenched valley. Nirgal Valles ends at Uzboi Vallis. Tributaries are very short and end in steep-walled valley heads, often called "amphitheater-headed valleys." The shape of these valley heads is like cirques on the Earth.
Outflow channels are extremely long, wide swathes of scoured ground on Mars. They extend many hundreds of kilometers in length and are typically greater than one kilometer in width. They are thought to have been carved by huge outburst floods.
The Ladon Valles are a river valley system lying within the Margaritifer Sinus quadrangle (MC-19) region of the planet Mars located at 22.6° South and 28.7° West. They are 278 km long and were named after an ancient name for a Greek river.
Chaos terrain on Mars is distinctive; nothing on Earth compares to it. Chaos terrain generally consists of irregular groups of large blocks, some tens of kilometers across and a hundred or more meters high. The tilted and flat topped blocks form depressions hundreds of metres deep. A chaotic region can be recognized by a rat's nest of mesas, buttes, and hills, chopped through with valleys which in places look almost patterned. Some parts of this chaotic area have not collapsed completely—they are still formed into large mesas, so they may still contain water ice. Chaos regions formed long ago. By counting craters and by studying the valleys' relations with other geological features, scientists have concluded the channels formed 2.0 to 3.8 billion years ago.
In summer 1965, the first close-up images from Mars showed a cratered desert with no signs of water. However, over the decades, as more parts of the planet were imaged with better cameras on more sophisticated satellites, Mars showed evidence of past river valleys, lakes and present ice in glaciers and in the ground. It was discovered that the climate of Mars displays huge changes over geologic time because its axis is not stabilized by a large moon, as Earth's is. Also, some researchers maintain that surface liquid water could have existed for periods of time due to geothermal effects, chemical composition or asteroid impacts. This article describes some of the places that could have held large lakes.
Equatorial layered deposits (ELD’s) have been called interior layered deposits (ILDs) in Valles Marineris. They are often found with the most abundant outcrops of hydrated sulfates on Mars, and thus are likely to preserve a record of liquid water in Martian history since hydrated sulfates are formed in the presence of water. Layering is visible on meter scale, and when the deposits are partly eroded, intricate patterns become visible. The layers in the mound in Gale Crater have been extensively studied from orbit by instruments on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The Curiosity Rover landed in the crater, and it has brought some ground truth to the observations from satellites. Many of the layers in ELD’s such as in Gale Crater are composed of fine-grained, easily erodible material as are many other layered deposits. On the basis of albedo, erosion patterns, physical characteristics, and composition, researchers have classified different groups of layers in Gale Crater that seem to be similar to layers in other (ELD’s). The groups include: a small yardang unit, a coarse yardang unit, and a terraced unit. Generally, equatorial layered deposits are found ~ ±30° of the equator. Equatorial Layered Deposits appear in various geological settings such as cratered terrains, chaotic terrains, the Valles Marineris chasmata, and large impact craters.