|
This high-resolution MGS MOC image shows overlapping landslide deposits at
the foot of the wall in the Ganges region of the Valles Marineris canyon
complex on Mars. PSI's Bill Hartmann
is currently collaborating with French researcher Cathy Quantin to use the
landslide data to examine the time behavior of cratering on Mars, and the
implications for using small craters to date landform features. The
younger (overlying) debris fan has a distinctly lower crater density of
small craters than the older (underlying) deposit. The relationship shown
here argues against
recent suggestions that crater densities of small craters are so completely
dominated by statistical clustering of "secondary" ejecta craters that they
are useless for dating.
|