Huge parallel grooves on Mars

Something caught my attention when exploring the Olympus Mons area in Google Earth: a series of large parallel grooves. They're near the middle of the three smaller volcanoes that are located between Olympus Mons and Valles Marineris. I'm baffled, this doesn't look like a geological feature. Could it have been created by grazing asteroids / impact debris? Mined by the martians? What do you think?





Closeup: www.pictureshack.us...

Oblique view, showing that the grooves are relatively shallow: www.pictureshack.us...

I don't think they're grooves. They look raised to me. Lava flows possibly?

Originally posted by wildespace
. I'm baffled, this doesn't look like a geological feature.

What is your geological background, and how does it apply to Mars?

How do they differ from the smalle sperm-like things around it?
Why do you feel it's not the same thing?

reply to post by wildespace


Cool find, I love seeing pics of mars.
Any reference to the size?
Maybe something for scale?

They look like grooves from where asteroids or meteors have hit the surface and scraped along bit, Although it is strange to see more than one in close sucession.

I am more interested in the hieroglyphics to the bottom of your lines.

The top one looks like deep gorges to me.

Though there is this optical illusion that I saw in a book once, and it was a picture of a sphere that was the same color as the background, and had a shadow with it. When viewed the right way up, it looks hollow. But when you turn the page upside down, it looks like it's popping out.

These parallel geographical features could be one or the other. Depends how you're looking at it.

And in the bottom right corner there is a stick man with his right arm and head cut off. What does it mean?!?

Pladuim

the first picture they look raised
the second picture they look like grooves
interesting

They sort of look like grooves caused by glacial action.

reply to post by wildespace

I think you'll find these videos paradigm changing www.youtube.com...
It certainly answered a lot of questions for me.

i was struggling to determine if they are grooves or raised humps



the mind works in mysterious ways

you wouldnt maybe guess they might have something to do with lava?

They are natural forming lava tubes that have collapsed, if you look around Mons you will notice more of them.



NASA has been thinking about using lava tubes on the moon to use as a base.

reply to post by wildespace


looks all the like to me what one sees on the sides of an old wine bottle that has a candle dripping wax down the sides

the effects are similar but the process is necessarily different

reply to post by LeLeu


I agree, they look like collapsed lava tubes and are near a volcano.

And for those wondering about it, they are "carved", not salient, as you can see by comparing the shadows with the shadows of the craters.

PS: after writing the above I noticed that there are fewer craters in this area, which usually means that this area's surface is relatively new.

It reminds me of what the huge digging machine would have left behind in the movie John Carter.

Originally posted by SecretKnowledge
the first picture they look raised
the second picture they look like grooves
interesting

They are grooves. The sun is in different positions in each image, so the shadows could be confusing you.

Look at the bottom grayscale image. You can see by the horseshoe-shaped feature at the bottom that the sun is shining from the direction of the bottom of that image. That would make them groves.



EDIT TO ADD:
And I agree that they look something like the rilles on the moon. Rilles can be formed by the collapse of lava tubes:

Moon Rilles:

Given the round depressions at the end of these ruts I would guess something landed then rolled, perhaps boulders thrown from a volcano. That doesn't explain where the boulders went or it could have been the opposite - something rolling left to right, then decaying with time leaving the rounded depression.