Post by Dr. Joannah Metz, Shell Oil Company
A large canyon system (up to 8 km deep) called Valles Marineris is located near the equator on Mars. The relative timing between the formation of the Valles Marineris canyon system and various light-toned stratified deposits observed within the different chasmata remains an outstanding question for the geologic history of Mars (Malin and Edgett 2000; Okubo et al. 2008) . Some of these stratified deposits have been deformed and understanding the mechanism(s) responsible for this deformation, both within and between chasmata, could provide insight into the relative timing of events within the Valles Marineris system (Metz et al. 2010).