Mars Close-Up: Apollinaris Patera

Alright. Here's a pretty slideshow made from the ESA image of Apollinaris Patera.

Wikipedia calls it a shield volcano, but I don't think it really is. The paterae are really old, low, broad volcanoes with odd calderas.
You can see the numerous branching rills of outflow from the lip of the central crater.

Apollinaris Patrera is about 3 to 3.5 billion years old and may owe its unusual morphology to volcanic interactions with liquid water in lower gravity.

Note that the formations under scrutiny aren't isolated to the immediate locale, but that this area, that is the SE slope of the volcano just outside the central crater, has ubiquitous uniform features that are seemingly only manifest in low lying areas that offer shelter from the North and West.

And there is no reason to comment on the specific characteristics of terrestrial volcanic soils...






[edit on 5-7-2008 by djerwulfe]

hate to, but feel obligated to do some self-referencing...
The following comes from the intro to the first Mars Close-Up i did...

"Basically, the argument goes thusly: This stuff is weird. It exhibits organization, direction, symmetry, axes & angles, proximal-compartmentalized complexes, and appears in some cases to be volitional, responsive and/or purposeful. There are also features that resemble motility morphologies.
This begs the question; if this amount of complexity occurs without life as we know it at play, do we perhaps need to broaden our definition of life?
And it seems unlikely, to this biologist, that these features are solely the result of accumulating dust or long-gone aquatic/volcanic action.

As anyone knows who has bothered to look, finding weird stuff on the surface of Mars is easy even with all the tampering. The Southern Polar Region is probably the easiest area to find weird forms, but as I said the place is lousy with ‘em!"

..and the basic argument remains the same...
Here's the thread and slideshow links..
www.abovetopsecret.com...

These are some very interesting images of Mars, thanks.
As for what caused them I'm not sure but I did see a few that did not look natural. The video is great, as well as the sound track, Black Sabbath is one of my favorites.

In my humble opinion, your potential in research is HUGE.
Regardless what comes out from this thread, in my opinion you should
stick on this subject matter, because it's for you, and you are able to
give a lot to it.
What we know for sure, so far, about Apollinaris Patera, is that both
signs of explosive and effusive origins are clearly visible, while you
are absolutely right about some points: some processes, indeed, have
changed at least partially the general appearance, hiding some
of the classic "fingerprints" of its formation. But this can be said
just regarding its external appearance. I mean, if all that we'd have
would have been images, then there would have been room for doubts. But photos are one of the many documentations that we have about it: so
let's stick on a photo for a while. Wikipedia is not a reliable source
unless it quotes, refers or mentions a reliable source: in this case,
wiki reports what scientists think about this formation.
What we have doubts about, is the possible combination of both causes:
in facts, NO ONE is able top say if explosions took place before, during or after the effusional event.
The only way to know it would be to roll back the time.

Mars' volcanic structures' ages are estimated to be around 3 billion
years: this means that all that has happened in the meantime, made
important changes to their appearance, so to base our assessments on
their appearance *may* drive us to the wrong direction.


That said, there are some valid points you made: the best way to look
at some formation on Mars, is to look at all available data: in your
fine research, in my humble opinion, you omitted to mention other
measurements that have been made:
for example a MOLA image gives to us an idea about its eight:

upload.wikimedia.org...
one cant get the appearance of a formation simply looking at a top-view
image. This is what we are looking at: the caldera, despite seen from
the top looks to be flat, is still all there, and its shape is
compatible with the geological formation of a volcano: it IS what i
would expect from a volcano. The volcano shape is still there, but it
can't be observed correctly by an orbiter image: i would call it
optical illusion. The fact that something looks to be flat does NOT
mean that it is actually flat.

One of the things that got you confused, in my opinion, is that
Apollinaris Patera is NOT in line with the most noticeable volcanic
chains: this makes the formation anomalous but not unexplainable.
It would be a story to long to be told right now.
Younger materials changed its appearance, in a way that even a serious
researcher may have some doubts: in this case, your doubts are rational
and well explained, but my take is that this is a volcanic formation
that has changed its general appearance during 3 billions years.

reply to post by internos



Fantsatic. Personally, I've reviewed much of the info you present in your post and I thank you for it. Nicely put. Nicely organized... hmmm, reads well ... presentation-wise

To be brief, I don't need to educate the informed. My goal is to enourage people who might not ordinarily and/or previously explore these topics to do so.

Apollinaris' uniqueness as a feature is exactly why it is featured. If I wasn't clear about its distinctive characteristics, I aopologize. It pained me not to address several aspects of the formation and the volcano, but I only allowed myself eight minutes.

***Of great significance that I found difficult to avoid is Apollinaris Patera'a proximity spatial relationship to ELYSIUM PLANITIA. Owch. But it had to be done.

I am not meaning to misinform or misrepresent. But my intent is to engage people. The whole issue of Mars is HUGE and it takes ALOT of effort to trim something down into a presentation.

I general, people don't want to look at bibliographies and some graphic data is lost on person with only a passing interest. They won't take the time to interpret the data and may/may not have the background to do so.

But again, I thank you for looking and I would love to have been able to present a more technical side to this, but it would ultimately defeat my purpose with this slideshow.

Please, direct as much general traffic this way as possible. I want new people to think about this. The more the merrier.
Thanks again.

I only have one thing to say against your work, and even this is not directly against it:

I hate videos that only show static images and text!

It's a waste of time (YouTube videos take forever to load. most of the times, so an eight minute video may take something like 20 minutes to fully load) and resources, and the information could be presented in a much better way just with the photos (not resized and reconverted in video and then re-sampled again by YouTube, unless you create your videos directly as FLV files) and the text (if any).

Having said that, I can not comment on your work until I waste eight minutes of my time in something that could take maybe two or three, but I will do it, at least this time.

Edit to add a PS:
I know that some people today only see videos, but I don't think those people have a IQ high enough to think about what they see.

[edit on 6/7/2008 by ArMaP]

Duly noted. Sorry. I have limited resources...
But thank you for thinking about it..
Any suggestions about this particular are,a ways to improve, etc.?

reply to post by BroonStone


Ahhh, Sabbath.
One of the only things I still get giddy and excited about without irony or cynicism..
From slideshow...

reply to post by djerwulfe


I don't have any suggestion, I just like data presented in the clearer way possible, and although the movie was made in a funny way (and with a good soundtrack ), I don't think that was the best way of presenting the data available.

These are from the full resolution Mars Express nadir image, rotated to look like the ones you presented.

The images are too large for ATS, you have to click on the link below the images to see the full size image

A
Full size image

B
Full size image

C
Full size image

D
Full size image

E
Full size image

F
Full size image

I will look for more photos from other missions tomorrow.

As I said yesterday, here are more photos from Apollinaris Patera.

From HiRISE, PSP_004889_1705 and PSP_001988_1710. These do not show exactly the same area, but they show the south slope, like the photo from Mars Express.

From the CTX camera aboard Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, images P06_003544_1703_XI_09S185W (41,0 MB) and P10_004889_1704_XI_09S185W (47,3 MB) may show that area.

From THEMIS, at least V08183001, V10416008, V11951004, V16557001, V11639010, V14085009 and V18691002 may show the same area (I hadn't the time to confirm if all these photos from all missions really show the same area as the one you used on your video).

From MOC, I think images M08-00083 and M11-04273 look like the ones you used at the end of your video, but there are also images S06-00474, S15-00951, E05-01179, S13-00922 and M00-01038, showing more or less that area.

At the end of the video you say that the "Hi-Resolution photographic data isn't accessible to the general public". What do you mean by that?

Warning to those with slower connections, the MOC images linked above are large images, each with more than 2 or 3 MB each.

Hell we already know about the martians...love the song though classic1

Yep! M08-00083 and some other strip from a little futher east closer to the large caldera out flow are shown in the slideshow.

What I meant was a couple things: One is that I can't download the lossless GIF files anymore. And it seems to me that at fine scale the resolution is sharper. I could download M08-00083 a few months ago, but I lost it. When I went back, "access denied." I uses the lossless GIF for my other slideshow, but I can't access those now either. I'm glad I did, when I did. I have a cable connection.
Second is that they could show us alot more, of course. The have resolution down to the one meter range, do they not? How about some samples from some of the more bizzare areas? But no.

Thank you. Real bummer abou the lossless GIF. best quality files. ALSO, it isn't uniform. Only areas of "interest" shall we say, are unavailable.

A point or two about the purpose of imaging:

This is obvious, but deserves explicitness; The MOC images all detail a feature or set of features of interest, be it geological, biological or whatever. They are not random samples.

The ESA images almost all deatil or include features that resemble biological evidence. Sometimes you have to look closely. They are usually not the thing that jumps out at you.

Originally posted by djerwulfeI could download M08-00083 a few months ago, but I lost it.

This image? I can download it without any problems.

Or are you talking about a different source?

If you want to see the images as they (supposedly) were before being converted, you can download the IMG (or in this case, IMQ, all the files I have seen are in that format) files, like I do.

Go to the PDS Mars Global Surveyor Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) Image Collection site, choose the FTP access and then choose the volume that has the photo you want, in the case of photo M08-00083 that will be volume MGSC_1059. Clicking it will send you to the FTP server, showing a list of folders and files. Choose the one you want (m08000) and you will see a list of images, in which you can see image M08-00083 (m0800083.imq). You can download it from there.

With NASAView (free, but they ask for name and e-email, send me a U2U if you want the program without giving them that information) you can open those IMQ (and IMG) files and convert them to GIF or JPEG.

After that you can open the GIF on any image processing program (I use GIMP, also free) to change the image as you like, with the advantage that the image as not been processed before, so you can change the light levels to show better a darker area without compromising the brighter areas.

Or you could use the excellent Mars Global Data Access, and in this case enter the name of the image (m0800083) on the "Find any Mars images by ID" box. The images available there are PNGs, and I only noticed today that they are 16 bits per pixel images instead of the common 8 bits per pixel.

Second is that they could show us alot more, of course. The have resolution down to the one meter range, do they not? How about some samples from some of the more bizzare areas? But no.

A possible explanation is that they wanted first a full (or close to full) coverage, then they can start increasing the resolution, but that makes for smaller areas, so they have to choose those areas more carefully, and what they want to see may not be what we want to see.

I'm going to try this out.
And I may contact you for software, ArMaP.
My main source has been this...
www.msss.com...

And what I have observed is that the lossless GIF files for certain images were available a few months ago, but aren't now.

And thank you.

Originally posted by ArMaP

Originally posted by djerwulfeI could download M08-00083 a few months ago, but I lost it.

This image? I can download it without any problems.

Whoa! Well for some reason I Can't.!! And I could a few months back.
What's up? I have access to the smaller files, but not this.
DENIED.

reply to post by djerwulfe


That is strange!

Is it possible that it is being blocked on your side (ISP, firewall, anti-virus, etc.)?

Well, that's screwy. Shouldn't be my security software and I have a pretty sloppy system with many prompts. Also, I haven't changed anything for a Looonng time....?

ISP? Hmmmm...

Shouldn't have sent all those confrontational emails to NASA..