Valles Marineris

I followed one of the links to a similar page on Olympus Mons ([url] www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/040705olympus-mons.htm [/url]) and I must say it does look alot like what they describe what will happen with some electrical arc causing the 'volcano'. Visually if you inspect the 'volcano' it does not look like a plain volcano anymore and the edges forming ridges is difficult to explain using lava flows only.
However, I'm no expert to make final conclusions.

Perhaps during the explosion of Planet V (aka Tiamat, as per the Enuma Elish??), Mars was shotgunned with Planet V's fragments on one hemisphere (centered 10 degrees west of the center of the Hellas Planitia). If so, that would make Hellas the largest of several large impact craters. And if the fragment which caused Hellas had a high enough velocity, it might punch all the way through Mars to cause the Australia-sized uplift 170 degrees on the opposite hemisphere. It would perforce cause vulcanization (Olympus Mons, and the three large volcanoes. Also, such a violent uplift might cause the crystalline surface of Mars to rip in a massive rift valley perpendicular to the line of force that caused the Tharsis uplift in the first place. This massive rift valley would be the Valles Marineris.
I have more where this came from, but this will do for my first post. This is going to be fun.

Melvin R. Bibbee II

Please allow me to correct my use of terminology. The Tharsis Uplift is 170 degrees antipodal to the center of the impact hemisphere (10 degrees west of the center of Hellas Planitia.) I'm a novice, so please be kind. thx,

Melvin R. Bibbee II

metaresearch.org/solar%20system/mars/VallesMarineris.asp would be a good place to start any new speculations from. -|Tom|-

TVF,
I have great respect for your theory concerning the origin of the Valles Marineris. I have read it with interest. However, I must repectfully disagree with it.
I was first interested in Mars by the writings of Donald Wesley Patten, so naturally I would loyally hold to his ideas. He has a remarkably coherent and cohesive model about Mars, even though he was a geographer by training and education rather than an astronomer, as you are.
The fact is the "Highlands" of Mars contain 90+% of the impact craters which are 20KM and larger in diameter. This would suggest that this hemisphere is raised above Mars' Mean Surface Level (MSL, related to Earth's Sea Level) due to its having absorbed that much more mass of fragments from the explosion of Planet V than the hemisphere antipodal to it. Don suggested that the Hellas Planitia, which is 900+ miles across (on a planet with a diameter of roughly 4200 miles), is a giant impact crater. He further suggested that the fragment which impacted in Hellas might have been the core of the exploding planet. If so, it would be heavier, and it might have punched all the way through Mars to form the Tharsis Uplift, which is antipodal to the center of Hellas.
Such a tremendously violent event would perforce cause a rift valley perpendicular to the line of force. Does Mars have such a feature adjacent and perpendicular to the Tharsis Uplift? Yes, it is the Valles Marineris.
In addition, this model suggests that Mars might capture a significant portion of the fragments which missed hitting the planet by a narrow margin into a ring system, of which today only Phobos and Diemos remain. Although there probably is a significant amount of dust and gravel-sized fragments still extant in Lunar orbit. That would explain why NASA and the Soviets lost so many of the spacecraft they attempted to insert into Mars' Lunar orbit. The spacecraft may have been disabled and/or destroyed by the remnants of the ring system around Mars.
There is more to this model. I do not feel confident enough to attempt to explain it all in one post. Tom, please show me the error of my thinking.
Thx,

Melvin R. Bibbee II

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by The Heretic</i>
<br />Tom, please show me the error of my thinking.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">That would be easier if you really wanted to know. But as you stipulate, you feel a need to be loyal to a particular person's ideas. But FWIW, here are comments on just the portion of the model you mentioned.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">I have great respect for your theory concerning the origin of the Valles Marineris. I have read it with interest. However, I must repectfully disagree with it.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Yet you only presented an alternative, not a reason to disagree. Perhaps you meant only that your alternative seems to explain some things that my VM paper did not. But those matters had already been explained in my book, <i>Dark Matter, Missing Planets and New Comets</i>.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The fact is the "Highlands" of Mars contain 90+% of the impact craters which are 20KM and larger in diameter. This would suggest that this hemisphere is raised above Mars' Mean Surface Level (MSL, related to Earth's Sea Level) due to its having absorbed that much more mass of fragments from the explosion of Planet V than the hemisphere antipodal to it.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">The crust in that hemisphere is up to 20 km thick, but only 1 km thick in the smooth, flat hemisphere. Both models utilize that fact, but in different ways.

The exploded planet hypothesis (EPH) recognizes that Mars, like Earth, is an oblate planet. When significant mass is added to one hemisphere, the entire planet will tip over so that the spin exis goes through the greatest mass. But when that happens, the poles will be high terrain and the equator low terrain, which is an unstable shape. So the heavier terrain at the poles must squeeze the interior, aided by centrifugal force at the equator, so that the new equator will bulge out. The squeezed interior will then cause eruption at the weakest place along the equator, which is Tharsis.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Don suggested that the Hellas Planitia, which is 900+ miles across (on a planet with a diameter of roughly 4200 miles), is a giant impact crater.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">On that, we agree. A 900-mile crater requires a roughly 60-90-mile impactor, only a little larger than the one needed to create VM.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">He further suggested that the fragment which impacted in Hellas might have been the core of the exploding planet.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">The probability is very small that the core would be headed right toward Mars, which presumable subtends only a few square degrees on the sky as seen from the exploding parent. The whole sky contains over 40,000 square degrees.

More importantly, the explosion originated in the core, so it would be vaporized and scattered in all directions. If the explosion didn't vaporize it, the sudden release of all that pressure would. For example, if Earth suddenly exploded, everything below about 40 km depth would be vaporized by sudden pressure release, leaving only about 0.1% - 1% of Earth's mass in the form of solid asteroids.

So the impactor that made the Hellas basin was just another large fragment, not the planet's core.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">If so, it would be heavier, and it might have punched all the way through Mars to form the Tharsis Uplift, which is antipodal to the center of Hellas.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">First, Tharsis is not antipodal to Hellas. Not even close. Second, there is too much mass in Mars for an asteroid to punch all the way through. Third, if it had, there would be a massive "exit wound" on Mars. Fourth, since it could not have been from the core, the Hellas-forming asteroid would not have been "heavier". Fifth, the entrance hole would have produced eruptions too as interior matter under great pressure escaped through it.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Such a tremendously violent event would perforce cause a rift valley perpendicular to the line of force.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">No, it would be in the line of force. And there would be no horizontal directionality to it. A rift valley is about the last kind of feature to result from a violent "exit wound".

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Does Mars have such a feature adjacent and perpendicular to the Tharsis Uplift? Yes, it is the Valles Marineris.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Like so many theories in vogue today, this reasoning is entirely ad hoc. No one would have predicted VM as the result, even given all your preamble as true.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">In addition, this model suggests that Mars might capture a significant portion of the fragments which missed hitting the planet by a narrow margin into a ring system, of which today only Phobos and Diemos remain.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Two-body capture under gravity alone is impossible. That is the main reason why the origin of Phobos and Deimos is widely considered a mystery, and boldly suggesting that they were simply "captured" displays only unfamiliarity with the laws of dynamics.

My book has a more complete capture hypothesis arising from the EPH alone. It is called "gravitational screen capture", and solves the dynamical mystery in a novel way. You might even borrow it for use with the "Hellas-Tharsis" theory. Buy then, it wouldn't be a point in favor of that theory over the EPH.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">Although there probably is a significant amount of dust and gravel-sized fragments still extant in Lunar orbit.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Not so. Debris orbits are unstable and quickly collide or escape the system.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">That would explain why NASA and the Soviets lost so many of the spacecraft they attempted to insert into Mars' Lunar orbit. The spacecraft may have been disabled and/or destroyed by the remnants of the ring system around Mars.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Most of those mission failures were cause by known malfunctions. Any ring around Mars would have been detected the way many rings around other planets were detected -- by occultations of starlight passing behind the ring.

Even if these problems were curable, it would be in an ad hoc way, the way the Big Bang is kept alive despite failure after failure to explain or predict phenomena correctly. -|Tom|-