Monument Valley, Mars
July 10, 2009The distinctive geological features of Monument Valley here on Earth, the mesas and buttes, are instantly recognisable.
It’s no surprise then that when the Mars Global Surveyor took the image below, on the Elysium Plains, approximately 300 kilometers (~185 miles) south of the Cerberus region in the Martian eastern hemisphere in 2000, it was quickly dubbed the “Martian Monument Valley.”
Uneroded rock can be seen to the top of the image, forming a flat upland area. The mesas and buttes formed with erosion of the layered bedrock, much as they did on Earth.
Martian Monument Valley
Photo: NASA/JPL/MSSS