Channels torn open by floods of unimaginable violence.
Mangala Valles is a system of outflow channels running hundreds of kilometers, carved when catastrophic floods burst from a crustal fracture. The water erupted from Mangala Fossa, a graben linked to the stresses of the giant Tharsis bulge.
Claim your plot here →Mangala Valles began at a single fracture in the crust — Mangala Fossa — from which enormous volumes of water suddenly burst and raced downhill. The floods scoured teardrop-shaped islands and braided channels into the terrain, hallmarks of flow far more violent than any river on Earth.
The trigger is thought to lie in the Tharsis volcanic province: rising magma and faulting released trapped groundwater or melted subsurface ice, unleashing megafloods. Mangala is one of the clearest records that liquid water once moved across Mars in catastrophic bursts.
The discharge that carved Mangala Valles dwarfs Earth's largest known megafloods, moving water at scales no modern river approaches.