Actually no,
This is a large pocket of sand dunes within Russell Crater on Mars. There are no rocks here unless you count clumps of sand held together by frozen water and CO2.
The dark spots are a charcteristic dune defrosting feature - the crests of elongate chains of dunes defrost first, leading to the chains of oval splotches. It's seen all over Mars' sub-polar regions.
The interesting story to this picture is working out what "flowed" and what carved the tracks down the dune faces?
I have long argued that we're seeing the sliding of large ice blocks (CO2 ice, not H2O). These form as corniches on the dune crests in winter, then collapse in spring (not every spring, just exceptional ones). The ice slides down the dune, buldozes the trail (note some angular jinks as they roll and flip). Then the ice block stops at the base, forms a distinctive horse-shoe-shaped berm, and sublimes away like Sherlock Holmes' ice bullet.
Unfortunately, in the one-eyed vigour to see the action of liquid water everywhere, these fascinating events are overlooked by traditional Mars geologists.
Space/Science » in reply to Interesting MOC image.
Dark Spots
