View of the mountain ridge
View of the mountain ridge
On the western slopes of the Coprates Mountains, the view reveals a landscape heavily altered by erosion. The original uplift of the terrain by several thousand metres may have taken place far in the Martian past, three and a half to four billion years ago, when magma bubbles caused the crust to arch up. This caused the crust to break open in many places as a result of the tensile stress, creating the grabens of Nectaris Fossae. Numerous nameless large craters attest to the great age of this landscape, which has changed little since the period of tectonic activity and the phase of intense volcanism.
