“Valles Marineris on Mars Is Still Tectonically Active, Columbia and Imperial College Scien” — what this page in the network covers. The largest canyon system in the solar system, Valles Marineris on Mars, is still tectonically active today, according to new research from scientists at Columbia University and Imperial College London. The study, published in a recent planetary science journal, reveals that the gargantuan rift—over 4,000 kilometers long and up to 7 kilometers deep—continues to experience faulting and crustal movement billions of years after its formation. This challenges the long-held view that Mars has been geologically dead for most of its history.
The researchers analyzed high-resolution images and topographic data from orbiting spacecraft, identifying fresh fault scarps and offset features that indicate recent slip along the canyon's bounding faults. Some of these displacements are so pristine that they likely occurred within the last few million years—a blink of an eye in geological time. This listing links straight to the original page, where the content is available in full.