MRO imagery reveals Red Planet's stressed substrate

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spends much of its time watching the Red Planet's shifting sand dunes, which offer plenty of clues about erosion and weather patterns on Mar's surface.

But as a new image captured by MRO's High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera reveals, high-res sand dune images can also offer insights into the nature of Mars' substrate -- the bedrock beneath the shifting sands.

The surface's stasis, in relation to moving dunes, reveals itself as erosion-resistant bedrock. By zooming in on these outcroppings, scientists can get a more intimate look at a surface scarred by time. Each fracture tells a story of bending and stretching, the marks of geological stress brought on by cycles of warming and cooling.

By studying the orientation and spacing of the substrate's scars, NASA scientists hope to better understand which geologic circumstances lead to specific types of fractures.