When they form, impact craters dig up material from below the surface and throw it outwards into what geologists call an ejecta blanket. The fastest ejected material travels the furthest so material from different depths can end up at different distances from the crater.

This HiRISE image shows a pedestal crater in Arcadia Planitia that has material of different brightness and color at various distances from the crater. This could tell us more about the material that’s buried below the surface here, but the situation is complex.

These pedestal craters have been significantly eroded so that not all parts of the eject blanket are equally preserved. A detailed geologic map of features like this can often tease these confounding factors apart and tell us more about what’s under the surface of Mars.

Written by: Shane Byrne  (17 March 2026)

This is a stereo pair with ESP_089600_2180.