The Geography of Mars

Succinct Presentation of Ten Fourth-Order Landscapes

This lab has the following objectives:

• to introduce you to fourth-order landscapes by having you research a few of the odder ones
• to give you practice (and confidence) in interpreting processes that could plausibly account for these features
• to have you summarize findings in a concise table "that even a manager can understand"

Your landscapes

Scout out and report on the following fourth order landscapes:

• Orcus Patera: 14° 178° E
• Chasma Boreale: 83° 301° E
• Lyot Crater: 50° 29° E
• Olympia Undæ: 81° 180° E
• Gale Crater: -5° 138° E
• Phlegra Montes: 41° 165° E
• Dorsa Argentea: -70° 60° E
• Libya Montes: 3° 89° E
• Cydonia Mensæ: 35° 348° E
• Galle Crater -51° 329° E (fixed typo!)

For each landscape, collect one image that you consider broadly representative of the feature and find out the processes that have been put forward to explain that landscape and why you think the landscape is unique or controversial. You can get started by opening Google Mars at http://www.google.com/mars/ and typing in the name of the feature in the search bar. Then, use one or two search engines to learn very generally about the feature. You might try out Google Scholar to get at the refereed literature if you're still craving information: http://scholar.google.com.

Presenting your analyses concisely

First, create a document in OpenOffice Writer. Format the page to landscape orientation, with margins of 0.50" all around.

Second, use the Table tab up top to Insert a Table. In the dialogue box that comes up, ask for eleven rows, one for each of the landscapes above and one for a header row, and three columns for the information requested above.

Third, in the first row and column for each landscape, list its name and location as above and the second or third order region (or first order, if it's really hard to pin down, and a couple of them are), in which it's found and hit enter. Possibly helpful is the GIMP file, https://home.csulb.edu/~rodrigue/mars/regions/mercatorMOLApaths.xcf. This should open in GIMP if you're in the lab. If you're at home, I encourage you to download GIMP for free (a href="http://getgimp.com">http://getgimp.com and the Mars map file and open it in GIMP there. You can activate and de-activate layers showing the boundaries to most third-order areas).

Then, back in Writer, still in that first cell, Paste the image you've selected (if you've saved the image somewhere, alternatively, you can hit the Insert tab and then Picture from file). The image may be huge and, so, you need to resize it to fit in, say, 1.5" or 4 cm. Do this by clicking it, holding down the Shift key, and then using the left mouse button to resize it (and preserve its original aspect ratio).

Fourth, in the second column for that row, list the process(es) put forward to account for the feature. You normally will have more than one. So, use the bullets tab to create bullet statements within the table cell. You may have to fiddle with the formatting (Format -- Bullets and Numbering).

Fifth, in the third column for that row, create a bullet statement or two to describe why the feature is odd, weird, anomalous.

Here is an example of how it should come out, using Lyot Crater (yes, you may use this verbatim, unless you find something else nifty to put in there):

Features	Processes	Oddities
Lyot Crater: 50° 29° E Northern Lowlands	230 km complex crater (bigger than Chixulub) Deepest elevation in the Northern Lowlands Phyllosilicates found there, indicating water alteration	Secondary crater clusters >5,000 km away were associated with Lyot by their location on great circle routes that converged on Lyot Some of the secondaries were nearly 1 km wide This has caused even deeper concern with secondary impacts, which might muddy attempts at absolute age-dating of martian surfaces

Last, when you are happy with the way your document looks (maybe 2-3 pages), put your name on the top, save the file, then use the File -- Export as -- pdf option in OpenOffice (lossless compression and PDF/A-1a works best). That way, you know it'll print the way you envisioned it. Open the pdf in Chrome or in Adobe Acrobat Reader and make sure it looks right. Then, put both files in the Dropbox for Lab 8: Table of a few fourth-order landscapes.