Valles Marineris

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By combining laboratory experiments with orbital data, researchers recently identified an unusual iron sulfate—ferric hydroxysulfate—forming in layered deposits near the massive Valles Marineris canyon system.

About Valles Marineris

• Valles Marineris, or Mariner Valley, is a vast system of interconnected canyons on the planet Mars.
• The system was discovered during, and named for, the Mariner 9 mission in 1971.
• The canyons extend in an east-west direction for roughly 4,000 km just south of the equator. 
  • By comparison, Earth’s natural wonder, the Grand Canyon, is only 446 km long.
• It is one of the larger canyons in the solar system.
• It spans about 20 percent of the entire circumference of Mars. 
• Individual canyons are typically 200 km across and have walls 2–5 km high.
• At the centre of the system, several canyons merge to form a depression 600 km across and 9 km deep.
• The canyon system contains a number of different features that give clues to its formation. 
  • Some of the canyon walls appear to be fault scarps that formed as a result of crustal movement along faults radiating from the Tharsis rise, an enormous volcanic bulge to the northwest. 
  • Erosion, however, has also played a significant role in canyon formation, as indicated by deep gullies cut in the walls.
  • In places, the canyons contain thick sedimentary sequences that may have been deposited in lakes that formerly occupied the canyons. 
  • These lakes later may have drained catastrophically to the east, where there is evidence of large floods.

Source: SD

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