PIA03845: Amenthes Crater
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  2001 Mars Odyssey
 Spacecraft:  2001 Mars Odyssey
 Instrument:  THEMIS
 Product Size:  1238 x 3025 pixels (w x h)
 Produced By:  Arizona State University
 Producer ID:  20020711A
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA03845.tif (1.708 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA03845.jpg (401.1 kB)

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Original Caption Released with Image:


(Released 11 July 2002)
The floor of a 75 km diameter crater in the Amenthes region of Mars displays lobate flow features in the center of this THEMIS image. It is possible that the flows are lava but there is no sign of the source vent. Note how the material has spread out across the floor of the crater and surrounds a peninsula of higher terrain in the lower 1/3 of the image. Wherever the flow encounters elevated topography it fails to lap up onto it and instead produces a distinct margin that in some places looks thicker than the rest of the flow. These are the features of a viscous material like lava but a dense mudflow could also produce such features. Viking and MOC wide angle images of this crater show a stubby channel entering from the southern rim, with the east side just visible in the bottom left of the THEMIS image. It is possible that a mudflow could have emerged from this channel, perhaps even multiple times, to produce the features we see today.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Arizona State University

Image Addition Date:
2002-07-15