The flyover video shows craters, mountains and dark streaks dotting various regions, including one known as Arsia Chasmata, near the large Martian volcano known as Arsia Mons.
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Arsia Chasmata is a steep-sided depression located northeast of Arsia Mons in the Phoenicis Lacus quadrangle on Mars, located at 7.6° S and 119.3° W. It is 97 km long and was named after an albedo name. Arsia Chasmata, as seen by HiRISE. A pit crater chain is visible in the lower right. In planetary geology, a chasma (plural: chasmata) is a deep, elongated, steep-sided depression.
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A collapsing coronae coupled with extensional stressing may result in rifting, creating a chasmata region.
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Voyager 2 image of Ariel. The Kachina Chasmata can be seen in the upper part of the image. The Kachina Chasmata are the longest canyon or system of canyons on the surface of the Uranian moon Ariel. The name comes from a spirit in Hopi mythology.
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Ophir Chasma THEMIS mosaic The next portion of Valles Marineris to the east are three chasmata, that from south to north are Melas, Candor and Ophir chasmata. Melas is east of Ius, Candor is east of Tithonium and Ophir appears as an oval that runs into Candor. All three chasmata are connected. The floor of Melas Chasma is about 70% younger massive material that is thought to be volcanic ash whipped up by the wind into eolian features.
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Below are images of some of the major chasmata of Mars. The map shows their relative locations.
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It also contains rough floor material from the erosion of the canyon walls. Also, in these central chasmata there is a portion of the floor that is higher than the rest of the floor, most likely left by the continued dropping of the other floor material. Around the edges of Melas is also a lot of slide material as seen in Ius and Tithonium chasmata. The material of the floor of the canyon system between Candor and Melas chasmata is grooved.
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Images from this and subsequent flybys showed that Rhea's streaks in fact are tectonically formed ice cliffs (chasmata) similar to those of Dione.
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Ganis Chasma was formed due to extension associated with volcanism in Alta Regio. It formed in the shape of an arc around the Sapas Mons, a corona feature associated with Alta Regio. There are two types of rift structures on Venus, rifts (or chasmata), and fracture belts. Ganis Chasma is younger than other chasmata on Venus, as evidenced by the lack of associated wrinkle ridges.
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The Messina Chasmata have only a few superimposed craters, which also implies being relatively young. The feature was first imaged by Voyager 2 in January 1986.
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Melana Chasmata was met with universal acclaim by both critics and band fans. Writing for All About The Rock, Rich Dodgin said: "The music of Melana Chasmata combines heaviness and gothic sensibility to create a fantastically nightmarish soundscape, and if you're a fan of dark ambient music you will love this". MetalSucks also praised the album, giving it five stars out of five. It also scored a perfect five out of five on MetalUnderground.
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Seasonal flows on Coprates Chasma in Valles Marineris. Deposits from landslides moving in opposite directions meet on the canyon floor near the junction of Melas and Coprates chasmata. Further to the east, the canyon system runs into Coprates Chasma, which is very similar to Ius and Tithonium chasmata. Coprates differs from Ius in the eastern end which contains alluvial deposits and eolian material and like Ius, has layered deposits, although the deposits in the Coprates Chasma are much more well defined.
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Valles Marineris (Latin for Mariner Valleys, named after the Mariner 9 Mars orbiter of 1971–72 which discovered it) is a system of canyons that runs along the Martian surface east of the Tharsis region. At more than long, wide and up to deep, Valles Marineris is one of the largest canyons of the Solar System, surpassed in length only by the rift valleys of Earth. Valles Marineris is located along the equator of Mars, on the east side of the Tharsis Bulge, and stretches for nearly a quarter of the planet's circumference. The canyon system starts in the west with Noctis Labyrinthus; proceeding to the east are Tithonium and Ius chasmata, then Melas, Candor and Ophir chasmata, then Coprates Chasma, then Ganges, Capri and Eos chasmata; finally it empties into an outflow channel region containing chaotic terrain that ends in the basin of Chryse Planitia.
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THEMIS infrared images. Parts of Ophir and Echus chasmata are visible at lower right and upper left, respectively. Just left of center, a side canyon can be seen following a graben towards the left. Perrotin Crater is just left of lower center.
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The Messina Chasmata are near the center of this Voyager 2 image of Titania. The Messina Chasmata are the largest canyon or system of canyons on the surface of the Uranian moon Titania, named after a location in William Shakespeare's comedy Much Ado About Nothing. The 1492 km long feature includes two normal faults running NW–SE, which bound a down-dropped crustal block forming a structure called a graben. The graben cuts impact craters, which probably means that it was formed at a relatively late stage of the moon's evolution, when the interior of Titania expanded and its ice crust cracked as a result.
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Chasmata and pit crater chains like those of Noctis Labyrinthus are likewise also not observed near areas where phreatomagmatic activity is strongly believed to have occurred, such as the Sisyphi Montes. Others have proposed that the chasmata of Noctis Labyrinthus are collapse features of a karstic nature, in which constituent carbonate rock is dissolved by meteoric water that has been acidified by acids originating in volcanic gases. This hypothesis has been challenged because carbonate spectral signatures have not been detected in the Noctis Labyrinthus network. The walls of the valleys of Noctis Labyrinthus have been widened significantly by slumps that have canvassed the valley floors with debris taking the form of mudflows and boulders.
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Critics of a purely tectonic hypothesis have also noted that although pit crater chains (central to the diking hypothesis) are generally aligned and coincident with graben, they are occasionally found to bifurcate and to cross coeval graben in a perpendicular direction in the vicinity of Noctis Labyrinthus. Some authors have also proposed that Noctis Labyrinthus' chasmata may have formed due to extensional faulting in weakened rocks composed of interlayered tuff and lava flows, known to produce pit crater chains parallel to graben. Other authors have suggested that phreatomagmatic processes were associated with the formation of the Noctis Labyrinthus chasmata. This hypothesis is not widely favored because chaos terrain morphology, proposed to form from this mechanism, is not found in the Noctis Labyrinthus fracture network.
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Although Mimas is heavily cratered, the cratering is not uniform. Most of the surface is covered with craters larger than in diameter, but in the south polar region, there are generally no craters larger than in diameter. Three types of geological features are officially recognized on Mimas: craters, chasmata (chasms) and catenae (crater chains).
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Cassini view of Mimas's trailing hemisphere, showing craters up to 6 km deep and 1-km-deep chasmata (grooves). The large crater near center is Morgan; Arthur is close to the lower right limb. Pelion Chasma is faintly visible as a horizontal trough left of Arthur and below Morgan. The surface area of Mimas is slightly less than the land area of Spain.
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Rim of Ganges chasma, closeup showing stratigraphy and small landslides. Further to the east lie Eos and Ganges chasmata. Eos Chasma's western floor is mainly composed of an etched massive material composed of either volcanic or eolian deposits later eroded by the Martian wind. The eastern end of the Eos chasma has a large area of streamlined bars and longitudinal striations.
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In planetary nomenclature, a chasma (plural: chasmata ) is a deep, elongated, steep-sided depression. As of 2020, the IAU has named 122 such features in the Solar System, on Venus (63), Mars (25), Saturn's satellites Mimas (6), Tethys (2), Dione (8) and Rhea (5), Uranus's satellites Ariel (7), Titania (2) and Oberon (1) and Pluto's satellite Charon (3). An example is Eos Chasma on Mars.
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In the chasmata of Noctis Labyrinthus, these pit crater chain collapse zones propagate directionally with a V-shaped tip, and can be used as an indicator of the direction into which magma withdraws from its underlying chamber. These V-tipped morphologies are generally found to propagate away from the center of the Tharsis Rise. Other authors have proposed an alternate origin for Noctis Labyrinthus, linking its formation to the Valles Marineris and likening its initial formation to the expansion and collapse of a dense lava tube network. Supporters of the lava tube hypothesis note that no evidence of lateral lava flows from the chasmata have been observed, suggesting against the notion that dikes must be required to underlie the surface of the modern-day collapse features as there is no evidence that such a near-surface intrusion has breached the surface in the Noctis Labyrinthus region.
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It is covered by numerous impact craters reaching 210 km in diameter. Oberon possesses a system of chasmata (graben or scarps) formed during crustal extension as a result of the expansion of its interior during its early evolution. The Uranian system has been studied up close only once: the spacecraft Voyager 2 took several images of Oberon in January 1986, allowing 40% of the moon's surface to be mapped.
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The impact that formed Herschel must have nearly disrupted Mimas entirely. Chasmata that may be stress fractures due to shock waves from the impact traveling through it and focusing there can be seen on the opposite side of Mimas. The impact is also suspected of having something to do with the current "Pac-Man"–shaped temperature pattern on Mimas. Herschel has an estimated age of around 4.1 billion years.
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Ius Chasma image mosaic from 2001 Mars Odyssey, showing side canyons created by sapping. On the northern (upper) rim, right of center, a side canyon turns 90 degrees where it encounters a graben. Further to the east from Oudemans, Ius and Tithonium chasmata are located parallel to each other, Ius to the south and Tithonium to the north. Ius is the wider of the two, leading to Melas Chasma.
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It was announced on October 22, 2013 that the new album will be titled Melana Chasmata. On February 7, 2014, Melana Chasmatas release date was revealed as being on April 14, 2014. The new album was received by music critics with a widely excellent critical response. In early August 2017, Triptykon announced that drummer Norman Lonhard would be exiting the band, and that auditions for a replacement would soon be underway.
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Cassini enhanced-color composite of Dione, showing the darker, fractured terrain of the trailing hemisphere. The Padua Chasmata trace an arc on the left, interrupted near the top by a central peak crater. On April 7, 2010, instruments on board the unmanned Cassini probe, which flew by Dione, detected a thin layer of molecular oxygen ions () around Dione, so thin that scientists prefer to call it an exosphere rather than a tenuous atmosphere. The density of molecular oxygen ions determined from the Cassini plasma spectrometer data ranges from 0.01 to 0.09 per cm3.
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Melana Chasmata is the second full-length album by Swiss extreme metal band Triptykon, released through Prowling Death Records/Century Media Records on 14 April 2014 in Europe and on 15 April 2014 in North America. The album was officially announced on 22 October 2013 by the band's frontman, Thomas Gabriel Fischer (a.k.a. "Tom Warrior"), on his official blog.Triptykon Press Release, 2013 The title is in Greek (Μελανά Χάσματα) and, according to Fischer, it can be roughly translated as "black, deep depressions/valleys" — or, more literally, "chasms as [black as] ink".
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The surface of Tethys mostly consists of hilly cratered terrain dominated by craters more than 40 km in diameter. A smaller portion of the surface is represented by the smooth plains on the trailing hemisphere. There are also a number of tectonic features such as chasmata and troughs. Cassini view of Tethys's Saturn-facing hemisphere, showing the giant rift Ithaca Chasma, crater Telemachus at top, and smooth plains at right The western part of the leading hemisphere of Tethys is dominated by a large impact crater called Odysseus, whose 450 km diameter is nearly 2/5 of that of Tethys itself.
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As the underlying magma body drains, the chamber's pressure decreases and it begins to deflate. A chain of crater-like depressions forms, where the extent of the collapse dictated by how deeply the magma body is located. Noctis Labyrinthus is estimated to have experienced collapses from the drainage of magma chambers up to 5 km below the chasmata floors. In Noctis Labyrinthus in particular, some researchers have speculated that the fracture zone's corridors may connect deeper intrusive structures, forming a plumbing network more akin to the terrestrial Thulean mantle plume, which was responsible for the formation of the North Atlantic Igneous Province.
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During the Voyager 2 flyby in 1986 the northern hemisphere of Ariel was not illuminated by the Sun because the spacecraft arrived during a southern solstice on Uranus. Nevertheless, because it was still illuminated by light reflected from Uranus, scientists using advanced processing methods were able to detect some details in the dark hemisphere. These analyses revealed a continuation of the Kachina Chasmata into the dark hemisphere, possibly as far as to the opposite limb. As the total length of the feature appears to be 1800–2200 km, it may be comparable to Ithaca Chasma on Tethys.
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One hypothesis was that shortly after its formation Dione was geologically active, and some process such as cryovolcanism resurfaced much of its surface, with the streaks forming from eruptions along cracks in the Dionean surface that fell back as snow or ash. Later, after the internal activity and resurfacing ceased, cratering continued primarily on the leading hemisphere and wiped out the streak patterns there. This hypothesis was proven wrong by the Cassini probe flyby of December 13, 2004, which produced close-up images. These revealed that the 'wisps' were, in fact, not ice deposits at all, but rather bright ice cliffs created by tectonic fractures (chasmata).
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Hebes Mensa is a large mensa that rises from the floor of Hebes Chasma, one of the chasmata of the Valles Marineris network on Mars. Some researchers have identified this mesa to be an interior layered deposit (ILD), similar to Ganges Mensa, and are named for alternating light-toned and dark-toned layers forming a stair-stepped stratigraphy. The faces of Hebes Mensa are sometimes fluted. Although many researchers have proposed a low-energy lacustrine depositional origin tied to continual groundwater feeding interspersed with occasional subaqueous volcanism, others have contested this hypothesis, noting that Hebes Mensa is so tall that it actually stretches above the canyon walls of Hebes Chasma.
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The 622 km long and 50 km wide chasmata arise from a system of normal faults running from the north-west to south-east. The faults bound down-dropped crustal blocks forming structures called graben. The canyons cut the cratered terrain, which means that they were formed at a relatively late stage of the moon's evolution, when the interior of Ariel expanded and its ice crust cracked as a result. The floor of the canyons is not visible on the images obtained by the Voyager 2 spacecraft in January 1986; thus, whether it is covered by smooth plains like the floors of other Arielian graben is currently unknown.
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The 2,000 km long Ithaca Chasma on Tethys in the Saturn system is a prominent example. Charon's Nostromo Chasma is the first confirmed in the Pluto system, however large chasms up to 950 km wide observed on Charon have also been tentatively interpreted by some as giant rifts, and similar formations have also been noted on Pluto. A recent study suggests a complex system of ancient lunar rift valleys, including Vallis Rheita and Vallis Alpes. The Uranus system also has prominent examples, with large 'chasma' believed to be giant rift valley systems, most notably the 1492 km long Messina Chasma on Titania, 622 km Kachina Chasmata on Ariel, Verona Rupes on Miranda, and Mommur Chasma on Oberon.
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Rhea's features resemble those of Dione, with dissimilar leading and trailing hemispheres, suggesting similar composition and histories. The temperature on Rhea is 99 K (−174 °C) in direct sunlight and between 73 K (−200 °C) and 53 K (−220 °C) in the shade. Surface features on Rhea well defined due to the lighting. Rhea has a rather typical heavily cratered surface, with the exceptions of a few large Dione-type chasmata or fractures (wispy terrain) on the trailing hemisphere (the side facing away from the direction of motion along Rhea's orbit) and a very faint "line" of material at Rhea's equator that may have been deposited by material deorbiting from its rings.
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His design for the Alien was inspired by his painting Necronom IV and earned him an Oscar in 1980. His books of paintings, particularly Necronomicon and Necronomicon II (1985) and the frequent appearance of his art in Omni magazine contributed to his rise to international prominence. Giger was admitted to the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame in 2013. He is also well known for artwork on several music recording albums including Danzig III: How The Gods Kill by Danzig, Brain Salad Surgery by Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Attahk by Magma, Heartwork by Carcass, To Mega Therion by Celtic Frost, Eparistera Daimones and Melana Chasmata by Triptykon, Deborah Harry's KooKoo, and Frankenchrist, by the Dead Kennedys.
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The Noctis Labyrinthus fracture zone is centered at the heart of the Tharsis Rise, dividing a plateau of Hesperian-Noachian age that is understood to be of a basaltic composition. The valleys of Noctis Labyrinthus fractured into three distinct trends (NNE/SSW, ENE/WSW, WNW/ESE) in an interlinked pattern that has been compared to the terrestrial fault systems that have formed over terrestrial domes. The formation of the fracture zone have been dated to the Late Hesperian based on crater counting age dates, concurrent with the formation of the lava plains of the adjacent Syria Planum province. Some researchers have modeled the formation of such chasmata on Mars on the propagation of simple graben underlain with dikes.
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The Thaumasia Plateau lies at the heart of the Tharsis Rise, and is framed to the northwest by the Noctis Labyrinthus fracture zone and the Valles Marineris chasmata (particularly, Ius Chasma, Melas Chasma, and Coprates Chasma, from northwest to northeast). Older Noachian basement crust, likely predating the formation of Tharsis, bound the Thaumasia Plateau to the west (Claritas Rise and the Claritas Fossae), the south (Thaumasia highlands), and the east (Coprates Rise and the Nectaris Fossae). The plateau stretches over 2900 km across the surface of Mars and sits at around a 4 km relief relative to the southern highland terrains immediately surrounding the Tharsis Rise. There are two general provinces composing the Thaumasia Plateau.
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The red rectangle shows the approximate location of Ovda Regio on the western part of Aphrodite Terra, Venus. Image was slightly modified from a map available at Wikimedia Commons Ovda Regio is a Venusian crustal plateau located near the equator in the western highland region of Aphrodite Terra that stretches from 10°N to 15°S and 50°E to 110°E. Known as the largest crustal plateau in Venus, the regio covers an area of approximately Dimensions are 6000 × 2500 km and is bounded by regional plains to the north, Salus Tessera to the west, Thetis Regio to the east, and Kuanja as well as Ix Chel chasmata to the south. The crustal plateau serves as a place to hold the localized tessera terrains in the planet, which makes up roughly 8% of Venus' surface area.
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Critics of this hypothesis for Ganges Mensa note that there are no barriers in the chasmata that appear to confine a putative paleolake downstream towards the outflow channels that they usually source (such as how Ganges Chasma opens into the uplands of Chryse Planitia), and how there are no observed morphologies on Ganges Mensa or on any of the other mesas of Valles Marineris that could conceivably correspond to paleoshoreline benches. More generally, Hebes Mensa also extends to a higher elevation than the rim of Hebes Chasma, which has implications on the broader formational mechanism of the valley mesas that are unlikely to be explained by a lacustrine mechanism. However, it is entirely possible that resurfacing could have eradicated any sign of such paleoshorelines, and that the geometry of Ganges Chasma might have been different enough in the past to have supported the presence of a deep paleolake.
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At this time, Komatsu and Strom favored a lacustrine (lake deposition) origination hypothesis for Ganges Mensa. In 1993, a study was published by Goro Komatsu, Paul E. Geissler, Robert G. Strom, and Robert B. Singer (all of the University of Arizona) examining the presence of layered deposits in Valles Marineris, elaborating on the work last discussed in 1990 at LPSC. In 1994, Baerbel K. Lucchitta, Nancy K. Isbell, and Annie Howington-Kraus (all of the United States Geological Survey) reported on the correspondence of geomorphic maps of Valles Marineris to digital terrain models, offering their insights into the geochronology of the valley network. The researchers argued that a lacustrine origin for interior layered deposits like Ganges Mensa was unlikely, as lake levels could not be sustained at the depth necessary to deposit such large features given the openness of the canyon system, although they admitted that the geometry of the canyon system might have been different and that the different chasmata might have been disconnected or isolated basins.
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In 1980, Philippe Masson of the University of Paris-Sud offered an integrated interpretation of the structural geochronology of Valles Marineris, Noctis Labyrinthus, and Claritas Fossae in light of imagery from Mariner 9 and the Viking Orbiter. In 2003, Daniel Mège (Pierre and Marie Curie University), Anthony C. Cook (University of Nottingham and the Smithsonian Institution), Erwan Garel (University of Maine in France), Yves Lagabrielle (University of Western Brittany), and Marie-Hélène Cormier (Columbia University) proposed a model for rifting on Mars initiated by the deflation of magma chambers, forming pit crater chains tracking directionally with simple graben. The researchers offered the first theoretical explanation as to how the chasmata of Noctis Labyrinthus formed. In 2012, a collaboration of French researchers Patrick Thollot, Nicolas Mangold, Véronique Ansan, and Stéphan Le Mouélic (University of Nantes), along with a cadre of American researchers including John F. Mustard (Brown University), Ralph E. Milliken (Notre Dame University), and Scott Murchie (Applied Physics Laboratory) reported on an unnamed basin in southeastern Noctis Labyrinthus showing an extremely wide assemblage of minerals known to form across a wide range of pH and water availability conditions.
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