The Hephaestus Fossae are a system of troughs and channels in the

Amenthes quadrangle The Amenthes quadrangle is one of a series of 30 quadrangle maps of Mars used by the United States Geological Survey (USGS) Astrogeology Research Program. The Amenthes quadrangle is also referred to as MC-14 (Mars Chart-14). The quadrangle ...

of Mars, with a location centered at 21.1 N and 237.5 W. They are 604 km long and were named after a classical albedo feature name. The fossae have been tentatively identified as

outflow channels Outflow channels are extremely long, wide swathes of scoured ground on Mars. They extend many hundreds of kilometers in length and are typically greater than one kilometer in width. They are thought to have been carved by huge outburst floods. ...

, but their origin and evolution remain ambiguous. It has been proposed that water may have been released into the troughs as a catastrophic flood due to subsurface ice melting following a large

bolide A bolide is normally taken to mean an exceptionally bright meteor, but the term is subject to more than one definition, according to context. It may refer to any large crater-forming body, or to one that explodes in the atmosphere. It can be a ...

impact.

References

See also