Athabasca Valles
About this image
This VIS image shows part of Athabasca Valles. The tear shaped features in the image are called streamlined islands. They are formed by the erosion of pre-existing positive topographic features that deflect the fluid around them. The narrow "tail" of the island points downstream, in this case from the upper right to the lower left.
Arising from Cerberus Fossae, the formation mode of Athabasca Valles is still being debated. While the channel features are similar to water flow, other features are similar to lava flows, and then other features have an appearance of slabs of material that floated on a underlying fluid (most likely lava). This is just one of the complex channel formations in the Elysium Planitia region.
Please see the THEMIS Data Citation Note for details on crediting THEMIS images.