PIA06012: Hills in Arctic Canada with Impact Origin
While most hills and mountains on Earth originate from tectonic motions or volcanism, Earth also has some examples of hills that originated from impacts of large meteorites, the predominant origin for hills and mountains on the Moon.
 Target Name:  Earth
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  Mars Exploration Rover (MER) 
 Product Size:  1576 x 980 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  JPL 
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA06012.tif (4.198 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA06012.jpg (133.6 kB)  

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Original Caption Released with Image:

While most hills and mountains on Earth originate from tectonic motions or volcanism, Earth also has some examples of hills that originated from impacts of large meteorites, the predominant origin for hills and mountains on the Moon. The grey hills in this image from Devon Island in arctic Canada are material ejected from an impact about 20 million years ago. The site is at 75 degrees north latitude. Researchers' tents at the left give a sense of scale.

Source: Dr. James Rice, Arizona State University

For related images, see PIA06010 and PIA06011.

Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/ASU

Image Addition Date:
2004-06-02