This huge system is 300 miles wide in some places. In contrast, Earth's Grand Canyon is only 18 miles wide.[2] It is one of the longest continuous outflow channels on Mars. The Kasei Valles system begins in Echus Chasma, near Valles Marineris. It then runs northward, and appears to empty into Chryse Planitia, not far from where Viking 1 landed. At around 20° north latitude Kasei Valles splits into two channels, called Kasei Vallis Canyon and North Kasei Channel. These branches recombine at around 63° west longitude, forming a large island in the channel known as Sacra Mensa. Some parts of Kasei Valles are 2–3 km deep.[3]
Like other outflow channels, it was likely carved by liquid water, possibly released by volcanic subsurface heating in the Tharsis region, either as a one-time catastropic event or multiple flooding events over a long time period. Others have proposed that certain landforms were produced by glacial rather than liquid flow.[4]
Three sets of enormous cataracts (dry falls) are present in the area between an "island" feature in the southern channel, Lunae Mensae, and the crater Sharonov.[5][6] These cataracts, evidently carved during megaflooding events, have headwalls up to 400 m high[6] and are considerably larger than the largest terrestrial analog, Dry Falls.[5] They may have migrated over 100 km upstream during the era of flooding in Kasei Valles.[5]
This article was sourced from Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. World Heritage Encyclopedia content is assembled from numerous content providers, Open Access Publishing, and in compliance with The Fair Access to Science and Technology Research Act (FASTR), Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., Public Library of Science, The Encyclopedia of Life, Open Book Publishers (OBP), PubMed, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Center for Biotechnology Information, U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, and USA.gov, which sources content from all federal, state, local, tribal, and territorial government publication portals (.gov, .mil, .edu). Funding for USA.gov and content contributors is made possible from the U.S. Congress, E-Government Act of 2002.
Crowd sourced content that is contributed to World Heritage Encyclopedia is peer reviewed and edited by our editorial staff to ensure quality scholarly research articles.
By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. World Heritage Encyclopedia™ is a registered trademark of the World Public Library Association, a non-profit organization.