Martian chaos terrain

(en.wikipedia.org)

50 points by tiagod3 days ago

3 comments

Gravityloss21 minutes ago
99% of scifi papers over these things. Somehow people always land in nice flat areas. Aliens' ground vehicle was modified from an airport tow truck. Talking about convenient flat land.Even on Earth, with weather and generous erosion, large portions of land are very dense forests or very rough mountains.
ozyschmozy2 days ago
I've been reading the Mars trilogy (by Kim Stanley Robinson) after it was recommended on an HN thread a while back, and it's been on my mind to look into what the "chaos" was. Pretty neat
- omnicognate1 hour ago
 "Badlands of Aram Chaos" itself sounds like a sci fi title. Also, the picture of it in the "Gallery" section is cool and visually confusing. I'm struggling not to see a smooth, reflecting water surface in it, that can't possibly be there.Edit: I think it's an aerial picture, but my brain insists on seeing it as one taken from the surface.
 - andai1 hour ago
 Yeah, I was just looking at that. What the heck. It's aerial?Reminds me of "name one thing in this picture"
tokai2 hours ago
I'm surprised that we do not have any chaos terrain on Earth. Can't find any explanation why. We have had large sudden flood events on Earth, but maybe weathering orders the 'chaos' over time?
- card_zero1 hour ago
 The suggested mechanism is that sedimentary rocks form over ice. That puzzles me in itself, because it implies a river with ice at the bottom. But anyway, then some heat source arrives and melts the ice, causing a sort of rug pull that means the rock layer drops down and breaks up. Kaboom.
 - petsfed14 minutes ago
 I think the most likely case for sedimentary deposition over ice would be something like volcanic eruption or an impact event redepositing material onto pre-existing ice.
- 1970-01-011 hour ago
 We almost certainly did at one point, but life and tides can fill-in the gaps. We also truly do not know what terrain is underneath Antarctica, Greenland, etc.