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Vallis (planetary geology)

Vallis (plural valles) is the Latin word for valley. It is used in planetary geology to name landform features on other planets.

Scientists used 'vallis for old river valleys they discovered when they sent the first probes to Mars. The Viking Orbiters caused a revolution in our ideas about water on Mars; finding huge river valleys in many areas. Space craft cameras showed that floods of water broke through dams, carved deep valleys, eroded grooves into bedrock, and traveled thousands of kilometers. Some valles on Mars ( Mangala Vallis, Athabasca Vallis, Granicus Vallis, and Tinjar Valles) clearly begin at graben. On the other hand, some of the large outflow channels begin in rubble-filled low areas called chaos or chaotic terrain. It has been suggested that massive amounts of water were trapped under pressure beneath a thick cryosphere (layer of frozen ground), then the water was suddenly released, perhaps when the cryosphere was broken by a fault.

Vallis

Vallis (plural Valles) is Latin for valley, vale; it may refer to the following :

Places and jurisdictions on Earth
  • the Swiss canton Wallis
  • Vallis (see), an Ancient city, former bishopric and Latin Catholic titular see in Africa Proconsularis
  • Vallis Vale in Somerset
Astronomy
  • Vallis (planetary geology)
  • Vallis Alpes on the Moon
  • Vallis Rheita on the Moon
  • Vallis Snellius on the Moon
  • Valles Marineris on Mars

Usage examples of "vallis".

As soon as the tenting of Nirgal Vallis was done, Separation de L'Atmosphere set up some of their largest mesocosm aerators, and soon the tent was filled with 500 millibars of a nitrogen-oxygen-argon mix that had been pulled and filtered out of the ambient air, now at 240 millibars.

A long glacier had run down from Simud Vallis and pooled in the Chryse low point, spreading until it became an ice sea, covering the land over the horizons to north, northeast, northwest.

Spencer's persona, and some extensive cosmetic surgery, had enabled him to work successfully in the materials labs in Echus Overlook, and then later in Kasei Vallis, the very heart of transnat security.

There are security people in Kasei Vallis who will be able to refresh your memory.

Hiroko, Desmond, Spencer who was deep in the system in Kasei Vallis, all exposed .

Spencer was working in Kasei Vallis, which was a kind of new Korolyov, a security town, very sophisticated and at the same time very low-profile.

This big canyon was Kasei Vallis, one of the clearest manifestations of ancient flooding anywhere on Mars.

But there were people in the Transitional Authority who wanted a jail on Mars itself, and Kasei Vallis was it.

When Spencer had identified for them the nature and purpose of the new settlement in Kasei Vallis, Coyote had immediately decided to try to create the means to effect these interventions.

The air in the chasm was hazy, and the tents of Kasei Vallis were defined sharply under this haze, little blisters of clear air standing over the buildings and curiously still trees, like glass paperweights dropped on the windy desert.

The wind was still rising, the dust now pouring down Echus Chasma and then Kasei Vallis, in a ghostly mimicry of the great outflow that had first carved the channel.

They were in the very upper reach of Reull Vallis, and ancient sapping had cut back into very hard material.

The two men had become good friends during their long trek home from Kasei Vallis, and under the pressure of the congress they were becoming like brothers, talking over everything, comparing impressions, testing theories, laying out plans for Nadia's judgment, and deciding to take on the task of writing some kincT of congress document.

Wandering in the darkness, under the immense cliff of the Great Escarpment, in the region just north of where Kasei Vallis broke through the wall.

Nirgal Vallis had no aquifer at its head, and so a pipeline from Marineris pumped enough water to the head to start a small stream running.