By combining laboratory experiments with orbital data, researchers recently identified an unusual iron sulfate—ferric hydroxysulfate—forming in layered deposits near the massive Valles Marineris canyon system.
About Valles Marineris:
Valles Marineris, or Mariner Valley, is a vast system of interconnected canyons on the planet Mars.
The system was discovered during, and named for, the Mariner 9 mission in 1971.
It is one of the larger canyons in the solar system.
The canyon system contains a number of different features that give clues to its formation.
Some of the canyon walls appear to be fault scarps that formed as a result of crustal movement along faults radiating from the Tharsis rise, an enormous volcanic bulge to the northwest.
Erosion, however, has also played a significant role in canyon formation, as indicated by deep gullies cut in the walls.
In places, the canyons contain thick sedimentary sequences that may have been deposited in lakes that formerly occupied the canyons.
These lakes later may have drained catastrophically to the east, where there is evidence of large floods.
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