1. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes Geography 494-01 S/07 Dr. Christine M. Rodrigue

2. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes

3. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes

4. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  On Earth, the orders of relief scheme  Is sometimes seen in geography textbooks  Organizes topographic variation in a scale-dependent manner  Geographers often focus on  Spatial analysis of particular phenomena  Regional synthesis to integrate assemblages of phenomena  Scales at which processes and regional patterns operate  The interactions among phenomena at different scales

5. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Examples of interactions among scales  In spatial statistics: the Modifiable Areal Unit Problem (MAUP)  In human geography: local cultural and political responses to global economic and political processes  Biogeography: alpha, beta, and gamma measures of biodiversity  Geomorphology: "megageomorphology" has emerged as remote sensing technology has made the simultaneous examination of form and process at large scale (small map scale) possible

6. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  For Mars, a handy descriptive scheme for handling the regional variations in Mars’ physical landscapes  The “First Order of Relief” = the crustal dichotomy  The northern lowlands: Vastitas Borealis  The southern highlands  If Earth’s oceans evaporated (which they will …), there would remain a crustal dichotomy here  Former ocean basins: low elevation, thin crust, basaltic, with a veneer of pelagic sediments  Former continents: high elevation, thick crust, granitic rocks and their extrusive igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic derivatives

7. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Regional subdivisions:  Utopia Planitia  North Polar Basin  Embayments:  Acidalia Planitia  Chryse Planitia  Amazonis Planitia  Arcadia Planitia  Isidis Planitia

8. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Relatively young surface  Smooth with few craters  This is exactly what you’d expect if Mars had had an ocean  It could be expected to receive sediments from rivers, floods, and coastal processes and create terrigenous sediments nearshore  They would be turned into minerals that would eventually precipitate out of the water column onto the abyssal floor  The oceans would thus cover the underlying original rock surface, much as pelagic sediments here do

9. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Further suggestions of an ocean:  Drainage of Martian outflow channels and valley networks  This is also exactly what you’d expect if Mars had had an ocean to serve as base level for stream networks

10. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Drainage:  Valles Marineris' outflow channels, which drain into Chryse Planitia  Nanedis north of Ganges  Ares and Aram Chaos  Argyre to Aram and Ares

11. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes

12. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Even better: Coastlines!?  Transition between the southern highlands and the northern lowlands is quite abrupt

13. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes

14. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Even better: Coastlines!?  Terraces on the Arcadia side of Alba Patera

15. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Even better: Coastlines!?  Tim Parker’s analysis of Viking imagery

16. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Even better: Coastlines!?  Tim Parker’s analysis of Viking imagery (1994)  His and others’ re-analysis using MOC imagery seemed to debunk his argument, which even he admitted in 2001  But it’s as though the new imagery is so fine in resolution that it can’t detect the coarser scale at which this putative ocean’s coastline features might exist  MOLA suggests that, in fact, at least one of the “coastlines” is at the same elevation (water seeks a level constant with respect to the geoid)

17. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Plot complication  That "ocean" floor is dominated by andesitic rock  Not sediments with minerologies consistent with precipitation out of water.  No carbonates! No ocean?

18. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  About those andesites  "Surface Type 1" (basalts dominating the southern highlands)  "Surface Type 2" (andesites and andesitic basalts dominating the northern lowlands)

19. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes

20. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Vastitas Borealis  Rampart craters

21. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  The Southern Highlands  Mostly 1-5 km above the mean Martian geoid  Versus 0-3 km below for the northern lowlands  Sharp ~1 km scarp dividing the two

22. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Arabia Terra

23. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Noachis Terra is another old land (for which “Noachian era” named)  West of Hellas, east of Argyre  Signs of water or fluid  Channels  Softened terrain

24. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Hellas, with Isidis and Utopia from the Northern Lowlands beyond

25. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Noachis Terra, Holden Crater, Vallis Uzboi

26. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Noachis Terra, Holden Crater, alluvial fan?

27. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Syrtis Major Planum, volcanic province, basaltic, not dusty

28. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Terra Tyrrhena, battered basalt, fluvial dissection, mineral precipitation (sulfates?), wind deposition

29. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Promethei Terra, east of Hellas, basaltic, landslides, dust devils

30. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Cimmeria Terra, basaltic, cratered, E of Hellas, S of Elysium, SW of Tharsis, Ma’adim Valles

31. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Ancient, battered terrain  Margaritifer Terra, basaltic, cratered, fluvial alteration, chaos terrain, east of Valles Marineris outflow, west of Meridiani

32. C.M. Rodrigue, 2007 Geography, CSULB Mars: First Order Landscapes  The “Orders of Relief” for Martian Landscapes  Basalt terrain and dust dominate the Southern Highlands  Spectra showing high proportions of basalt shown in the green  Andesite shown in the red channel  Hæmatite shown in blue (small area)  Dust-dominated areas come out brown