Dark Rimless Pits in the Tharsis Region

[n2doc]

Two dark rimless pits are located to the Northwest of Ascraeus Mons. These pits are approximately 180 meters and 310 meters in diameter, respectively, and are situated in the midst of a large, wispy dark boomerang-shaped deposit.

These pits are aligned with what appears to be larger, degraded depressions. The wispy deposit may consist of dark material that has been either blown out of the pits or from some other source and scattered about by the local winds.

Subimage (A) and (B) are close-ups of both pits. These images have been highly processed to reveal the surface details within each pit.

The Eastern most and smaller of the two pits (A) contains boulders and sediment along its walls and brighter aeolian dune sediments on its floor.


The larger, Western most pit (B) contains sediment and boulders with faint dune-like patterns visible on the deepest part of the floor. Both pits have steep Eastern walls and more gently sloped Western walls that transition gradually into the pit floor. Steep resistant ledges containing boulders that overhang and obscure the pit floors form the Eastern walls.

http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/ESP_019997_1975

[snagglepuss]

1. Are these rimless pits unusal?

[TheMadMonk]

7. Unusual enough that they evoked a lot of controversy when they first...

...were noticed.

These two show a small amount of interior detail in the wideangle images. Earlier images looked like pools of oil with what looked like a clearly defined "shore".

This "shore" was seen as evidence that the holes where the collapsed roofs of lava tubes.

The enhanced images show them to be something that looks more akin to sinkholes. (I do wish they hadn't rotated the enhanced images, it makes it hard to match them to the wideangle.)

Lava tubes would have been a lot better. 2-300m wide tunnels, kilometres long would have made for a lot of radiation proof colonisable realestate. These holes have some potential, but they're going to take a lot more work to make a home in.

I think Greg Bear has at least one thing right in his book Moving Mars. Martian colonists will be red rabbits. Keeping a barrier of soil between them and the solar wind and the subatomic hail of the universe.

Holes in the ground will almost certainly be very important things in the colonisation of Mars.

[pinboy3niner]

2. I had Dark Rimless Pits in the Tharsis Region

The doctor gave me some pills and I'm all better now. :evilgrin:

[veganlush]

4. painful and itchy aren't they?

[pinboy3niner]

5. Hurts like hell!

That's the last time I'll eat Sarah Palin's mooseburgers, that's for sure! :evilgrin:

[burrowowl]

3. Thanks for the link!

[byronius]

6. Pretty.

[qazplm]

8. Spice Worms?

Perhaps we should commence mining!

[txlibdem]

9. Perfect location for a Mars colony

Build by digging into the walls of these canyons (pits sounds like an unclean place --"Yeah, I live in the pit!") and go into the surrounding rock deep enough to provide protection from solar radiation and solar storms (and small meteorites would easily fall through the thin atmosphere without burning up).