Week 8
To procrastinate studying for my physics test:
I talked to Ralph today and I'm pretty sure we have narrowed down a concrete project. I will be examining and characterizing the interactions of Hesperian lavas with Noachian terrain in the north and northeast region of Syrtis Major, an area that is home to the largest of several ancient shield volcanoes found on Mars. We are aiming to understand how these these two formations have interacted with one another to better understand whether of not the features seen in Syrtis Major have come as a result of the infiltration of Hesperian lava flows.
The Noachian/Hesperian boundary signifies a change in the behavior of the planet and by examining the interactions between the rocks we will be able to determine whether or not this change was abrupt or gradual. We will start by characterizing the lava flows themselves in order to determine their nature: were they thermally erosive? are they lying conformably with preexisting terrain? what are the natures of the boundaries between the two rock units? are these boundaries variable from place to place?
There are a lot of questions that come up when discussing this, thereby creating a runaway kind of effect. I think we are going to just ride it out and see where the image data takes us; we might get stuck on one very interesting area or we might be able to survey the entire northeast section of the region.
Also, since Ralph doesn't have a post-doc as of right now, I get my own office space (and a new laptop). I was told not to get my hopes up though, because I might eventually get kicked out... Regardless, it's a really nice room to have for a little while; great view overlooking the quad. ha ha ha.
Comments