Antoniadi is a crater on
Syrtis Major Planum in the
Syrtis Major quadrangle,
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, only being larger than Mercury. In the English language, Mars is named for the Roman god of war. Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin at ...
, located at 21.5° north latitude and 299.2° west longitude. It is long and was named after
Eugène Michael Antoniadi
Eugène Michel Antoniadi (Greek: Ευγένιος Αντωνιάδης; 1 March 1870 – 10 February 1944) was a Greek- French astronomer.
Biography
Antoniadi was born in Istanbul (Constantinople) but spent most of his adult life in Franc ...
, a Greek astronomer (1870-1944) who spent most of his life in France.
There is evidence that Antoniadi Crater once contained rivers and lakes. The picture below shows an inverted channel in Antoniadi, as seen by HiRISE. Inverted channels formed from accumulated sediments that were cemented by minerals. These channels eroded into the surface, then the whole area was covered over with sediments. When the sediments were later eroded away, the place where the river channel existed remained because the hardened material were resistant to erosion.
Inverted relief
Some places on Mars show
inverted relief
Inverted relief, inverted topography, or topographic inversion refers to landscape features that have reversed their elevation relative to other features. It most often occurs when low areas of a landscape become filled with lava or sediment th ...
. In these locations, a stream bed may be a raised feature, instead of a valley. The inverted former stream channels may be caused by the deposition of large rocks or due to
cementation. In either case erosion would erode the surrounding land and leave the old channel as a raised ridge because the ridge will be more resistant to erosion. An image below, taken with HiRISE of Antoniadi Crater shows sinuous ridges that are old channels that have become inverted.
Inverted relief in the form of sinuous and meandering ridges, which are indicative of ancient, inverted fluvial channels, is argued to be evidence of water channels on the Martian surface in the past.
[HiRISE, 2010a, Inverted Channels North of Juventae Chasma (PSP_006770_1760). Operations Center, Department of Planetary Sciences, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, Tucson, Arizona.][Williams, R.M.E., T.C. Chidsey, Jr., and D.E. Eby, D.E., 2007, "Exhumed paleochannels in central Utah - analogs for raised curvilinear features on Mars", in G.C. Willis M.D. Hylland, D.L. Clark, and T.C. Chidsey, Jr., eds., pp. 220-235, ''Central Utah - Diverse Geology of a Dynamic Landscape''. Publication 36, Utah Geological Association, Salt Lake City, Utah.] Another example of inverted relief on Mars is
Miyamoto Crater, which was proposed in 2010 as a potential location to be searched for evidence of life on Mars.
[Newsom, H.E., N.L. Lanza, A.M. Ollila, S.M. Wiseman, T.L. Roush, G.A. Marzo, L.L. Tornabene, C.H. Okubo, M.M. Osterloo, V.E. Hamilton, and L.S. Crumpler, 2010, "Inverted channel deposits on the floor of Miyamoto crater, Mars". ''Icarus''. 205(1):64-72.]
Gallery
Image:Antoniadi Crater Stream Channels.JPG, Inverted Stream Channels in Antoniadi Crater, as seen by HiRISE.
See also
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Impact crater
An impact crater is a circular depression in the surface of a solid astronomical object formed by the hypervelocity impact of a smaller object. In contrast to volcanic craters, which result from explosion or internal collapse, impact crater ...
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Impact event
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List of craters on Mars
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Ore resources on Mars
Mars may contain ores that would be very useful to potential colonists. The abundance of volcanic features together with widespread cratering are strong evidence for a variety of ores. While nothing may be found on Mars that would justify the hi ...
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Planetary nomenclature
Planetary nomenclature, like terrestrial nomenclature, is a system of uniquely identifying features on the surface of a planet or natural satellite so that the features can be easily located, described, and discussed. Since the invention of the tel ...
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Water on Mars
Almost all water on Mars today exists as ice, though it also exists in small quantities as vapor in the atmosphere. What was thought to be low-volume liquid brines in shallow Martian soil, also called recurrent slope lineae, may be grains of ...
References
External links
Sjogren, W. L.; Ritke, S. J., ''Mars - Gravity data analysis of the crater Antoniadi''Antoniadi in Google Mars
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Impact craters on Mars
Syrtis Major quadrangle