Episode 159Water is the dominant agent of destruction of rocks on Earth. Mars has vanishingly small amounts of water, so wind erosion dominates, but that ca...
Possibly. There are some pretty wild temperature swings. I’m not a geologist, but I think rocks usually fracture along the plane of their crystalline structure (as it’s the weakest bond)
Let’s propose that these eroded boulders have a different crystalline structure due to the way they were formed / modified by groundwater etc., then they maybe they are fracturing in a piecemeal fashion, and basically crumble away due to the wild temperature swings.
Possibly. There are some pretty wild temperature swings. I’m not a geologist, but I think rocks usually fracture along the plane of their crystalline structure (as it’s the weakest bond)
Let’s propose that these eroded boulders have a different crystalline structure due to the way they were formed / modified by groundwater etc., then they maybe they are fracturing in a piecemeal fashion, and basically crumble away due to the wild temperature swings.