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Oxbows and Cutoffs in Idaeus Fossae

Aug. 21, 2013
As rivers age they can meander and occasionally these meanders get so pronounced that the river cuts off these curving loops at their narrow end leaving them as isolated as oxbow lakes. Image from NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

As rivers age they can meander and occasionally these meanders get so pronounced that the river cuts off these curving loops at their narrow end leaving them as isolated as oxbow lakes.

The objective of this observation is to check for the presence of these features. At HiRISE resolution, we should be able to test for traces of former meandering river channels in what looks like an oxbow feature in images from lower-resolution cameras.

HiRISE is one of six instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. The University of Arizona, Tucson, operates the orbiter's HiRISE camera, which was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Project for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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