Deseado (crater)
Southern polar crater with a central ice mound.
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Deseado Crater is a large impact crater in Promethei Planum near the south pole of Mars, within the Mare Australe quadrangle. It contains a central topographic high interpreted to be an ice mound of probable Amazonian age. The crater is notable for its appearance in the Mass Effect trilogy as the site of a Prothean structure.
Context
Deseado Crater lies in Promethei Planum near the Planum Australe plateau, south of the Hellas impact basin. It is situated north of Chasma Australe and Australe Lingula.
The crater is immediately adjacent to the Southern Polar Layered Deposit, a geologic unit of alternating dust and ice layers. Its name, approved by the International Astronomical Union in 2006, comes from Puerto Deseado, Argentina. In the Mass Effect series, the crater hosts a Prothean installation used to observe early human evolution.
Geology
The crater was emplaced on a flat low-lying plain associated with the Dorsa Argentea Formation, possibly lava-formed. Its age is disputed, with estimates ranging from the Hesperian to the Amazonian period.
At its center is a terraced dome hypothesized to be a large ice mound, separate from the main southern polar ice sheet and likely much younger than the crater. The mound is biased west of the basin's center, an asymmetry attributed to the Coriolis effect deflecting katabatic winds. Unlike similar craters, the Deseado ice mound lacks clear layering, edge ridges, stacked mounds, or sand dune seas.
More in Plains on Mars
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Deseado (crater) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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