Xanthe Chaos

Today's VIS image shows Xanthe Chaos, a region of knobs and mesas within the channel of Shalbatana Vallis.

In planetary nomenclature, the descriptor term chaos means "distinctive area of broken terrain". The general morphology of chaos is steep-sided mesas with intervening small valleys. With time and erosion the valleys widen and the mesas grow smaller. While on many planets chaos terrain results from tectonic forces, on Mars it is most likely that chaos terrain results from the release of melted subsurface ice.