by rstevenson » Sun Aug 22, 2010 4:36 pm
kogelmans wrote:To my eye the "trails" follow the hills and only coincidentally intersect craters, further suggesting volcanism as the trail maker.
I don't know about that. All the trails seem to go from knob to knob or crater to crater. I've hardly seen trails that are not between two "knobs" (but I will check on this). So how can volcanism be the cause?
By "hills" I meant the same thing you're calling knobs. It looks to me as if those trails are long shallow valleys, with those knobs either somewhere along them or at the intersection of two or three of them. It therefore seems likely they're causally connected. I suggest volcanism because it's the only thing I can think of.
Imagine the trails are ancient cracks in the crust, and at the time those cracks occurred volcanic activity was more likely than now. The cracks are weak spots in the crust and an intersection of cracks even more so, so it seems the most likely place for a small volcanic cone to develop would be along the cracks or at their intersections. It's possible that the cracking and volcanism may have been related to the impact that made the Tyndall Crater itself.
As mentioned on
this page, lack of craters is possible evidence of magma flows over the surface of Mars. The area where these trails are is quite smooth compared to nearby cratered areas, which was my first hint that volcanism might be involved.
I hereby volunteer to go and find out more about the area.
Rob
[quote="kogelmans"][quote]To my eye the "trails" follow the hills and only coincidentally intersect craters, further suggesting volcanism as the trail maker.[/quote]
I don't know about that. All the trails seem to go from knob to knob or crater to crater. I've hardly seen trails that are not between two "knobs" (but I will check on this). So how can volcanism be the cause?[/quote]
By "hills" I meant the same thing you're calling knobs. It looks to me as if those trails are long shallow valleys, with those knobs either somewhere along them or at the intersection of two or three of them. It therefore seems likely they're causally connected. I suggest volcanism because it's the only thing I can think of. :)
Imagine the trails are ancient cracks in the crust, and at the time those cracks occurred volcanic activity was more likely than now. The cracks are weak spots in the crust and an intersection of cracks even more so, so it seems the most likely place for a small volcanic cone to develop would be along the cracks or at their intersections. It's possible that the cracking and volcanism may have been related to the impact that made the Tyndall Crater itself.
As mentioned on [url=http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/080317-volcanic-mars.html]this page[/url], lack of craters is possible evidence of magma flows over the surface of Mars. The area where these trails are is quite smooth compared to nearby cratered areas, which was my first hint that volcanism might be involved.
I hereby volunteer to go and find out more about the area. :D
Rob