science

Tartarus Colles

Tartarus Colles is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tartarus Colles rather than just read about it. In short: Tartarus Colles are a group of knobby hills in the northern plains of Mars. Context Tartarus Colles runs from 8° to 33° north latitude and 170° to 200° west longitude.

Key takeaways

Tartarus Colles belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tartarus Colles to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tartarus Colles from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tartarus Colles are a group of knobby hills in the northern plains of Mars.

Context Tartarus Colles runs from 8° to 33° north latitude and 170° to 200° west longitude. They were named after a classic albedo feature. The name was officially approved by the IAU in 1985. The term "Colles" is used for small hills or knobs. There are over 40,000 knobs associated with Tartarus Colles. This landform is located within the Diacria quadrangle of Mars.

Geology Some researchers have proposed that the knobs of western Tartarus Colles are consistent with concurrent interpretations of knobs in Cerberus Palus (downstream of Athabasca Valles), which would suggest that they formed as the result of interactions between lava and water to form what has been termed by some authors as volcanic rootless constructs (VRC). This class of lava-water interactions includes rootless cones, but have fewer genetic implications in their definition, as are not necessarily phreatomagmatic (resulting from the explosion of steam from the sudden evaporation of fluids on contact with lava). The water source is not required to have been added en masse in the form of some aqueous flood - instead possibly being available in the form of an extremely thin and shallow ground ice reservoir whose presence and extent is controlled by obliquity as an orbital forcer.

Observational history In 2008, Mark A. Bishop of the Planetary Science Institute and the University of South Australia reported on his results using higher-order neighbor analysis to attempt to discern any kind of pattern in the distribution of Tartarus Colles' knobs. The purpose of the study was to reconcile competing hypotheses as to the origin of these knobby landforms, which had been analogized by other authors to putative pingoes and rootless cones in Athabasca Valles and elsewhere in Elysium Planitia. Bishop found the cones of Tartarus Colles to exhibit a complete spatial randomness except where solifluction or magmatic effects were readily apparent. In 2011, Christopher W. Hamilton and Sarah A. Fagents of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa in Honolulu, Hawaii, and Thorvaldur Thordarson of the University of Edinburgh in Scotland reported on the results of their geomorphic mapping, lava thickness estimations, and statistical analyses (nearest neighbor modeling) to investigate the hypotheses that the cones of Tartarus Colles are what the authors have termed "volcanic rootless constructs" - a more generalized variation of the term "rootless cone" that does not explicitly require a phreatomagmatic origin, or any clear explosive expression such as a pseudocrater. The authors criticize the tendency to generalize Martian pseudocrater analogies against Mývatn, the Icelandic lake, which has been used as a type example of structures arising on Mars from water-lava interactions in a way that ignores the variability of such structures even across Iceland.

Gallery

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tartarus Colles

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tartarus Colles claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tartarus Colles before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tartarus Colles ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tartarus Colles

In research: Tartarus Colles appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tartarus Colles in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tartarus Colles is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Diacria quadrangle, Hills on Mars, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tartarus Colles outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tartarus Colles in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tartarus Colles means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tartarus Colles out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tartarus Colles in simple terms?

Tartarus Colles are a group of knobby hills in the northern plains of Mars. Context Tartarus Colles runs from 8° to 33° north latitude and 170° to 200° west longitude.

Why does Tartarus Colles matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tartarus Colles?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tartarus Colles.