Faults mapping in Noctis Labyrinthus area

Noctis Labyrinthus is a region located in the western part of Valles Marineris, bordering Syria Planum to the north and it’s a part of the Phoenicis Lacus quadrangle on Mars. The faulting of this region is not yet well understood being made up of intersecting canyons and complex branched networks of faults and extensional grabens. We have mapped all the lineaments on a given portion of the Noctis Labyrinthus (Defined by the coordinates ''6.36 ° S, 258.81 ° ''E on the surface of Mars and bordered with Noctis Fossae on NE and with Syria Planum and Syria Colles on S-SE) on images from the CTX camera of Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. In particular , we have drawn on different scales faults, scarps and grabens and we have checked their orientation using rose diagrams. The Rose diagrams show at all scales two main trends of faults: ENE-WSW and N-S that do not show a preferential cross-cutting relationship of one direction over the other. This seems to support a coeval development of the two systems potentially generated in response of a bidirectional or a radial extension. Particularly relevant are the pits which can be find within the tip and at the margin of the Noctis Labyrinthus grabens. They seem due to the tectonics process of graben propagation more than cratering phenomena and thus might give hints on the rheological subsurface layering which underwent the extensional deformation.