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PIA00419: Scamander Vallis
Scamander Vallis on Mars; north toward top. This scene shows heavily cratered highlands dissected by the slightly sinuous gully of Scamander Vallis, as seen by NASA's Viking spacecraft.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Viking 
 Spacecraft:  Viking Orbiter 1
Viking Orbiter 2
 Product Size:  318 x 981 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  U.S. Geological Survey 
 Addition Date:  1998-06-08 
 Primary Data Set:  Viking EDRs 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA00419.tif (482.3 kB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA00419.jpg (38.02 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:

A color image of Scamander Vallis on Mars; north toward top. The scene shows heavily cratered highlands dissected by the slightly sinuous gully of Scamander Vallis. The channel begins by dissecting a steep slope of an impact crater wall and abruptly ends about 180 km north of the crater.

This image is a composite of Viking medium-resolution images in black and white and low-resolution images in color. The image extends from latitude 13 degrees N. to 19 degrees N. and from longitude 330 degrees to 332 degrees; Mercator projection.

The lack of tributaries, fairly straight path, and steep walls of the channel suggest spring sapping as a mode of origin. The abrupt termination may have resulted from burial by younger deposits or perhaps the flows percolated into the surface materials and continued underground.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/USGS

Image Addition Date:
1998-06-08