Why do the fans occur in lines?
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by trillian22
I wonder why the fans sometimes occur in lines like this - on Stargazing Chris Lintott said that Mars has no tectonic plates so they're not fault lines
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by GregS
I have seen the same thing. Fractures are not just caused by tectonics. Could it be tidal effects from close encounters with other planets, like the moons of Jupiter. There are also huge volcanoes on Mars which suggest at least some up and down movement, flexure and deformation, even if there are no plates going sideways.
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They're caused by icesheets moving below the surface. The lines are where the gas comes up between the icesheets. Because of the movement, colliding and growing of icesheets during defrosting the lines constantly move over time.
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by GregS
Difficult to be sure without the context and scale of the image. What is driving the ice sheet movement? Why are the lines apparently cross-cutting?
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