Lineated valley fill

A lineated valley fill is like a big scar on the surface of a planet called Mars. It’s a huge pile of rocks and dirt that have been shoved around by moving ice. Imagine playing with a toy truck in a sandbox that is filled with ice cubes. When you push the truck through the ice, it makes a pile of ice shavings, right? That’s kind of like how a lineated valley fill is formed.

On Mars, there used to be glaciers that moved around the planet, scraping up rocks and dirt as they went. When the glaciers melted, all the debris was left behind in a big mound. Unlike a pile of ice shavings that easily fall apart, this mound is massive and rocky. Scientists call this kind of pile a lineated valley fill because it sits in a long, winding valley that looks like it was made by a river, but instead, it was made by the glacier.

Some of these mounds are as tall as a skyscraper, and they stretch on for miles and miles. They’re really cool to study because they can tell us a lot about what Mars used to be like long ago. Even though they look empty and lifeless, they give us clues about the planet’s history and how our solar system formed.