This map shows the planet Mars during the late Noachian Period, around 3.8 billion years ago, labelled with modern feature names.
Until around 3.5 billion years ago, Mars had a thicker atmosphere and was warmer than present day, and evidence suggests that liquid water flowed on its surface, carving the many river channels that remain there today. The lakes shown on this map are lakes that are theorized to have existed around this time. In the north was an ocean, though it was probably never as high a sea level as shown here. It is believed that much of this water was lost to space, carried away over time by solar wind, and that which remains on Mars today is frozen in the polar ice caps, and is also likely to be found frozen and buried across the planet under the surface layer of dust.
Many present day geologic (areologic) features and craters had yet to form or were in the process of forming, such as the Tharsis or Olympus volcanoes and the Valles Marineris canyon, but this map uses modern terrain data so it doesn't truly reflect how the terrain really would have looked back then. During this time period Mars would have actually appeared to be more grey like the Moon or the planet Mercury, as the iron in the soil had yet to rust. I went with the present day reddish colouring as a stylistic choice.
Also included on this map are the locations of the 7 successful Mars landers.
![image showing Ancient Mars [10000x5000] [OC]](5cc0dbc6-fcc2-5e16-b6d2-d16ab61ed15d.jpg)
v7x on October 10th, 2017 at 12:06 UTC »
Ancient Mars
Link to higher resolution version of this map [14227x7114 - 43Mb]
This map shows the planet Mars during the late Noachian Period, around 3.8 billion years ago, labelled with modern feature names.
Until around 3.5 billion years ago, Mars had a thicker atmosphere and was warmer than present day, and evidence suggests that liquid water flowed on its surface, carving the many river channels that remain there today. The lakes shown on this map are lakes that are theorized to have existed around this time. In the north was an ocean, though it was probably never as high a sea level as shown here. It is believed that much of this water was lost to space, carried away over time by solar wind, and that which remains on Mars today is frozen in the polar ice caps, and is also likely to be found frozen and buried across the planet under the surface layer of dust.
Many present day geologic (areologic) features and craters had yet to form or were in the process of forming, such as the Tharsis or Olympus volcanoes and the Valles Marineris canyon, but this map uses modern terrain data so it doesn't truly reflect how the terrain really would have looked back then. During this time period Mars would have actually appeared to be more grey like the Moon or the planet Mercury, as the iron in the soil had yet to rust. I went with the present day reddish colouring as a stylistic choice.
Also included on this map are the locations of the 7 successful Mars landers.
JPeterBane on October 10th, 2017 at 13:07 UTC »
I'd imagine having such a large ocean in the northern hemisphere and very little in the southern would make for some weird weather by Earth standards.
irondumbell on October 10th, 2017 at 14:08 UTC »
dibs on the island