May 11, 2017

While perusing James Keane's notes posted on twitter, I came across two drawings of lectures from Bill McKinnon. They were posted in Sep 2016 and Mar 2017 (6 months apart). They show similar but different conclusions related to Sputnik Planitia (SP) as an impact site.

Combining these two sets of notes with Bill's lecture at the 47th LPSC in March 2016, we can see how Bill has adjusted his position on the Sputnik Planitia basin in 6 month intervals over the course of a year. An interesting pattern emerges with Bill. First he presents SP as an impact but has the humility to admit there is no ejecta "this is why we have to go back to Pluto" says Bill. Six months later Keane's note indicates Bill is saying there is a clear rim and a 1 km ejecta collar, then 6 months after that, Bill toned it down to "ejecta?, rim? rings?" and presented these ideas as questions rather than statements.

I've commented at length about nearly all of Bill's conclusions except the comparison of SP to Hellas basin on Mars and their similarities. This page is mostly about that comparison but to start, I need to quickly cover other aspects of Bill's conclusions related to SP.

Comparing Notes

In this Bill McKinnon video 2hr 17min 30sec into it
Bill says.
SP on Pluto and Hellas on Mars are big craters and cratering efficiency is very low.

You don't need to be very oblique to get an elliptical crater as long as your cratering efficiency is very low. Cratering efficiency is defined as the ratio of the radii of the diameter to the impactor.

Estimates for SP are very low around 2 for the transient crater that made SP.
That is the impactor is about half the size of the transient crater.

Bill calls SP a transient crater - interesting word choice - Transient comes from Latin transire, "to pass over," describing things that are quickly passed over. lasting a very short time. Passing especially quickly into and out of existence. Yet Bill also suggest SP is over 4 billion years old.

A year later James Keane's notes indicate Bill says the impactor diameter is 150-250 km (93 x 155 miles), also according to Bill, SP is 1,300 x 900 km, that too appears to be incorrect.
Update - this article called The Pluto system after the New Horizons flyby
by Catherine B. Olkin,  Kimberly Ennico &  John Spencer
released Sept, 25th 2017 quote
The dominant geological feature on Pluto’s encounter hemisphere is a large 750 km × 1,400 km depression, 3–4 km deep, called Sputnik Planitia
Those dimensions indicate SP is between 5.6 and 9.33 times larger than the theoretical impactor not twice the size as Bill suggested previously.

Bill quote "That is the impactor is about half the size of the transient crater."
In Keane's, notes quoting Bill, Sputnik Planitia's size changes from 1,300 x 900 km down to 1,150 x 900. If the theoretical impactor was 150-250 km then Sputnik Planitia itself should be twice that size or 300 x 500 km or the impactor should be half the size of SP or 650 km but it does help that Bill's size estimate of SP somehow shrunk from 1,300 down to 1,150 in one year.
These numbers and ratios simply don't align.

In the video, Bill displays this chart and continues to says

Chances of getting an impact crater the size of Sputnik Planitia in the last 4 Gyr is less than one percent. This makes Sputnik Planitia a very, very ancient structure? What happened to transient?

I don't quite follow this logic, it seems to me the less than 1 percent chance of SP having been hit by an object this size says more to indicate this is not an impact site rather than concluding it is an old structure. This logic infers, only smaller objects can collide with planets in the last 4 billion years.

In addition to that, what are the odds of an impactor this size hitting Pluto within a 500 million year window between 4 to 4.5 billion years ago, I would think that guesstimate figure would be significantly less than one percent since Bill says it is less than one percent for a 4 billion year period? Where does this estimate come from? What's it based on? Are there any impacts in the solar system that occurred 4 billion years ago that are geologically active today as a result? No.

Bill suggests the size of the object that created SP was 150-250 km diameter and that means it had to happen 4-4.5 bya.

• Shiva crater off shore of India 500 km diameter, impacted 65 million years ago.
• Bedout crater off shore of Western Australia, 250 km diameter, impacted about 250 Myr ago.
• East Warburton basin Southern Australia, 200+ km diameter, impacted 300-360 Myr ago.
• Wilkes Land Crater in Wilkes Land Antarctica, 500 km diameter, impacted 250-500 million years ago.
• Australian Impact Structure, Northern territory Australia, 600 km diameter, impacted 545 Myr ago.

Click here, for a list of other large impact craters, all of which are less than 2 Gyr old not 4 Gyr.

In this video Crater # 14 Kara was 75 miles (120km) in size 70 million years ago but has since eroded down to 40 miles in diameter demonstrating how craters on planets with atmospheres and geology erode down to smaller sizes. That means, since SP is geologically active it would have been nearly twice as large as it is today.

Crater # 11 Acraman in Australia was formed 580 million years ago and has eroded down to 56 miles.

The reason so few craters are found on Earth is because they erode away. But in Pluto's case a 4 billion year old impact is supposed to be geologically active and twice its original size.

James Keane notes from Bill McKinnon lecture at Geological Society of America Sept 25th 2016

Keane's Notes Sep 25th 2016

SP is 3 km (1.86 miles) below surrounding terrain
1,300 x 900 km (808 x 560 miles) ellipse

See a clear rim
Do not see clear secondaries (perhaps erased by glaciers)

No clear rings, but the mountains sort of line up where you expect rings

Lack of rings/secondaries is reminiscent of Hellas, Mars

There is a 1 km (0.6 miles) thick ejecta "collar" around SP!

Two months later on Nov 16, 2016 F. Nimmo, Bill McKinnon and others published an article in Nature called

Reorientation of Sputnik Planitia implies a subsurface ocean on Pluto.  

In the article, there's an image of SP along with its dimensions which are
1,300 km x 900 km  

Four months later the following Keane notes show Bill is saying SP is
1,150 km x 900 km.

Keane's Notes Mar 22nd 2017

SP is 2.5 Km deeper than average Pluto
SP is an 1,150 x 900 km (715 x 560 miles) elliptical basin.

Ejecta?
Structural uplift/Rim?
Multiple Rings?
Mascon?

Compared to the radius of the planet, Sputnik Planitia is similar in scale to Hellas, Mars.

3 km/s impactor, hitting at 45 degrees = 150-250 km diameter impactor.

James Keane notes from 48th LPSC 2017 March 22nd.

Elliptical shape probably comes from impact angle
At low velocities, oblique impacts greater than 45 degrees can create ellipses.
The notch in the south may also be formed by this.
Deepest in NNw, shallowest in SSE. 

Bill has gone from admitting there is "no ejecta" to saying "there is a 1 km ejecta collar!" to "ejecta? (question mark)"
Bill has gone from saying the impactor hit at 5 degrees to hitting at greater than 45 degrees to approximately 45 degrees.
Bill has gone from saying SP is 1,300 x 900 km down to 1,150 x 900 and an impactor of 150 to 250 km created SP.
Bill has said the impactor is about half the size of the crater (150 km impactor, 1,300 km crater???)
Bill said there is a less than one percent chance of an impactor that size hitting Pluto in the last 4 Gyr.
Bill has gone from saying nothing about a rim to there is a clear 1 km rim, to saying structural uplift/Rim?

Quote from an article in business insider related to theoretical SP impactor.
"[W]e are almost certainly talking a [comet] strike out there, rather than a (rocky) asteroid," Bob Pappalardo, a planetary scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory who wasn't involved in the new research, told Business Insider in an email.
The new studies add to this idea, noting the catastrophe must have happened within the past 4 billion years and that the impact site was originally more than 4 miles deep.

All I'm trying to point out with this quote is that one scientist (Bob Pappalardo) says it had to happen within the last 4 byr while another (Bill McKinnon) says it happened more than 4 byr ago which says to me, I need to reason this stuff out for myself.

At the 47th LPSC 2016 Bill used this image to explain why there was no ejecta indicating the impactor hit at 5 degrees and the ejecta was sprayed southward into Pluto's shadowed area. Six months later there is a 1 km collar of ejecta, six months after that and its "ejecta???"

We've gone from a 5 degree impact to a 45 degree impact because five degrees helps explain the lack of ejecta and 45 degrees helps sell the idea Pluto has experienced polar wander and a subsurface ocean exists creating a positive gravity anomaly at SP.

Someone finally observed that SP was aligned directly across from Charon.

Francis Nimmo used this observation to support Bill McKinnon's subsurface ocean theory suggesting that the crust of Pluto at SP was thinned by an impactor which created an underground bulge allowing more ocean water to exist beneath SP creating a positive gravity anomaly at SP even though SP was a 3 km (1.86 mile) deep basin which in fact by all normal reasoning should be a negative gravity anomaly.

Don't be confused by the rhetoric SP is a negative gravity anomaly.

Notice the difference in the circle Bill used to present SP as an impact site versus the positive gravity anomaly outline of SP used in the above image.

The above image needs SP to be centered along the Pluto/Charon tidal axis while Bills image needs to create the illusion of an impact basin.

The above image is more accurately depicting SP shape than Bill's image (left).

Here's F Nimmo's drawing which says b) Either a nitrogen layer 40 km thick, c) or an uplifted ocean could result in the present day positive gravity anomaly at SP. If neither is present then a negative gravity anomaly results. F Nimmo argues against the likelyhood of scenario "b" then jumps to conclude "c" is correct while completely ignoring "a". Why? Because they want it to be so. There is no foundational basis for concluding SP is a positive gravity anomaly, that is unless you want a subsurface water ocean.

Its odd to me that in one paper Nimmo says a planet with a core radius smaller than 1,000 km can not still be radioactively hot yet completely jumps on board with the notion Pluto's core is hot enough to produce an ocean of water. The maximum size of a Pluto fully differentiated hot silicate rocky core is 40% by volume according to Bill Mckinnon or 1,188 x 4/3╥r3 x 0.40 = 875 km according to Nimmo the core radius in 850 km or approximately 40%. I calculate 850 km to be 36.6% but lets go with 40%. Its peculiar to me how they ignore their own conclusions when trying to sell their hypotheses.

James Keane drawing

I've said it before but consider the logic of this positive gravity anomaly at SP.

Roll an unevenly balanced ball across the floor and the heaviest side always stops with the densest (heaviest, gravitationally strongest) side facing toward the center of the earth it will NEVER stop with the heaviest side facing away from the strongest pull of gravity.

Our moon is tidally locked with the densest part facing toward Earth. Pluto and Charon would naturally gravitationally lock with their densest sides facing each other.

It is ridiculous to think otherwise yet this is exactly what mainstream scientists want us to believe.

This above image is the whole premise of the positive gravity anomaly that theoretically suggests SP rotated the densest part of Pluto from a perpendicular angle to Charon around to the anti Charon side and an impact created a thin crust at SP with an uplifted subsurface water ocean. This absurd conclusion is the result of force feeding Bill McKinnon's concepts onto Pluto, it actually started back with Bill and Robin Canup's collision model but the end results are the same. Approach a problem with a preconceived answer and you can force fit any scenario onto the landscape even conceiving of greater densities where there is less mass.

Perhaps you've heard of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation.
This law says that every mass exerts an attractive force on every other mass.
The larger the mass and the closer the objects, the stronger the force.
This simple statement explains why the densest part of Pluto is facing Charon and vise versa.

Below is a gravity map of the moon the right most orb is the side portion primarily facing Earth with some portions shown in the left orb. Reds oranges and yellows are denser than the greens and  blues. In general it's easy to see the densest part of the moon is the near side while the less dense side is the far side of the moon. This is how positive gravity anomalies orient themselves relative to another gravitational pulling force. Densest sides face each other when they become tidally locked. F. Nimmo suggests this alignment is completely arbitrary as long as the positive gravity anomaly is in line with the other planet it can align facing away just as easily as towards the other body. Test this idea for yourself. Go roll an unevenly distributed mass ball on the floor a thousand times and see just how arbitrarily it stops with the dense side facing away from the center of the Earth.

I've already covered the above points in previous pages so moving along, the comments in James Keane's notes that peaked my interest the most were these.

Lack of rings/secondaries is reminiscent of Hellas, Mars

Compared to the radius of the planet, Sputnik Planitia is similar in scale to Hellas, Mars.

Since Bill is referencing Hellas on Mars as a comparison to SP, I decided I needed to study Hellas more closely.

Bill uses the fact that Hellas Planitia doesn't have rings and neither does Sputnik Planitia as supporting evidence that SP is an impact site similar to Hellas.

Additionally, Bill says compared to the size of the planet, Sputnik Planitia is similar in scale to Hellas Planitia on Mars. Pluto has a radius of 1,189 km, C. Olkin,  K. Ennico &  J. Spencer indicate SP is 1,400 km in diameter making its radius 700 km which is 59% the radius of Pluto. Mars has a radius of 3,396 km, Hellas with a radius of 1,150 km makes Hellas 34% the radius of Mars.

34% vrs 59% is a significantly large difference in my opinion. It's actually a 74% difference. (59% - 34%) = 25,  25/34% = 74%
SP covers between half and two thirds the radius of Pluto while Hellas covers one third that of Mars.
Similar in scale? Not sure about the scale Bill is using.

Understanding some funny words.
A Planitia is a flat depression below a zero elevation reference point (like an ocean or fluid)
A Planum is a raised large plain above zero elevation.
Montes are mountains and
Mons are volcanoes,
Valles is a valley while
Vallis is the plural of Valles,
Terra is land,
Sulci is subparallel furrows and ridges
Patera is volcano,
Vastitas Borealis is the northern low lying plain (planitia) that covers 40% of Mars.

For the most part all you need to know is that Planitia is a depression or low plain while Planum is an elevated plain

Everyone knows Hellas is an impact basin, right?
I mean, we don't really need to question that concept since we all agree its an impact site, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

Lets look at Mars in general and Hellas basin in particular utilizing multiple mapping methods to explore this question.
There are natural color maps
Topographic color maps
Gravitational color maps
Temperature color maps
Magnetic color maps
Gray scale color maps

Each has a story to tell

There are some impressive details you can readily see in gray scale that just don't stand out as well in other tones.
Click image for high res version.

Right image shows a few feature with names like Olympus Mons, Alba Patera and the Tharsis Montes.


This entire area is of particular interest.

Look close at the surrounding area of Olympus Mons, you can see a ring pattern surrounding this massive raised land mass area.

Almost half of the planet is involved in this uplift structure, perhaps 40%, pretty much the same amount of uplift as there is missing material from the depression or planitia that is all of Vastitas Borealis (most of northern hemisphere). 

Vastitas Borealis (below image) is the entire northern planitia area in blue. Compare the general size of the northern blue planitia or low lying plane with the size of the raised brown and red area surrounding the volcanoes. They are similar in size as one has influenced the creation of the other. Internal material pushes up and out of one area causing another area to have a deficit of material forming a collapsed area.

Mars Topography Map with Lat & Lon

One particular noteworthy observation, Vastitas Borealis is conspicuously devoid of impacts as is the entire Tharsis Montes area. This not only indicates these two features are younger than most of the entire southern hemisphere but they are also similar in age. In essence, one formed the other or at least played a roll, they are related in time.

In some images, Olympus Mons is on the left of the map in others its on the right because sometimes the zero degree longitude is centered, other times the 180 degree longitude is centered.

The map I use will depend on which version makes it easiest to understand the land's layout.

An area of confusion sometimes comes from the fact maps like the one above start with zero in the middle increasing to the left while other map's numbers increase to the right (below map longitude increases from middle to right). West longitude maps have the numbers increasing from right to left while East longitude maps show numbers increasing from left to right.

In the below topography map you can see how the raised volcano area called Elysium (right center) is adjacent to the depression Utopia Planitia. The 3 volcanoes in the Tharsis area (left center) along with other volcanoes are adjacent to the Acidalia and Arcadia Planitia depressions. In fact 40% of the northern hemisphere (blue area) called Vastitas Borealis is a low lying plain or planitia but some areas of this plain are lower than others hence the darker blue in the topography maps.

Here is the Tharsis Arcadia and Acidalia area in gray scale and close up. Top right (One O-Clock position) you can see a depression

Below is a closeup view of Elysium Volcano with a depression just NW called Utopia Planitia.
In this image you can also see the volcano Syrtis Major which is only recognized as a Planum (raised plane) but it is in fact an extinct mud volcano that sits right along side of a low plain or planitia called Isidis.

This is a mud volcano on Earth looking very much like Syrtis Major.

There is a vast quantity of frozen water ice below the dirt surface of Mars.

Many of the elevated mounds called Planums are Mars' version of mud volcanoes.

When I use the word volcano for these features, consider most of them to be mud volcanoes creating gently sloping Planums.

Have a closer look below.

Here's the same area colored in topographical colors.

Elevated Elysium is adjacent to depressed Utopia.

Elevated Syrtis Major is adjacent to depressed Isidis.

Both Elysium and Syrtis are volcanoes even though Syrtis is called a planum.

While Syrtis is an elevated plain it was nevertheless created by volcanic processes and is a mud volcano or a type of shield volcano

Syrtis with its gentle smooth slope is a massive mud volcano while Elysium was constructed more from rocky material displaying a more obvious peak.

The similar crater count indicates similar age, although the mud volcano looks slightly older suggesting the mud shield volcano preceded the creation of the depression.

Syrtis Major Planum an extinct mud volcano flowing into Isidis Planitia basin.

This is a close up of the large volcanic area and I've drawn red lines through many of the wrinkles which appear to surround the central bulging land mass created by those volcanoes. In the central area are a series of volcanoes and large plates. As material has been pushed up to create all the volcanic mountains the material from surrounding area's have been sucked up causing the surrounding areas to collapse into planitias.

This whole area (below) circled in red is bulging upward stretching towards the volcano peaks. The subsurface ejected material is creating the surrounding depressions further out from the central point. The land has broken into 3-4 large plates (blue text). NW of the plates there are a series of at least 7 volcanoes (yellow numbers) which spewed out material from below. All this material being sucked up or pushed up from below has left vast depression or planitias nearby as well as one long massive sunken crack called Valles Marineris between plates 2 and 3.

The tallest volcano we know of in the solar system is Olympus Mons (Volcano #2 below). Material has flowed out to the NNW from this volcano creating ripple patterns. Volcano 1 appears to have spread out over a larger area than Olympus Mons. The sequence of eruptions appears to be something like this. Volcano 2 erupted first then 4, 5, 6 and 7 erupted together then 3 then 1. New Mars meteorites indicate one volcano erupted over a 90 million year period which is a long time. All this subsurface pressure pushing outward cracked the crust into at least 3 large plates, plate 4 seems to either still be attached to the original land or its fracture has been filled over by the flow from volcano 3.

Take a few minutes to study this scene. Nearly half of Mars was involved in creating this structure and I'm suggesting that's why 40% of the entire northern hemisphere is a planitia called Vastitas Borealis. Material ejected out of this area which in turn caused the northern hemisphere to sink or collapse inward creating the northern planitia called Vastitas Borealis.

Hellas Planitia is the lowest point on Mars and is almost directly across from the highest point on Mars.

Hellas basin the largest visible basin in the solar system is nearly directly across from the largest volcano in the solar system.

What are the odds that, that is a coincidence?

Right image is a rotating view of Mars in a topographical format showing how Alba Patera is directly opposite Hellas Planitia.






Below is a topographical map, purple is the lowest elevation followed by dark then light blue, green is zero elevation while yellow, red then white are higher elevations. I've circled in blue the highest elevation areas and in red the lowest.

Below is a split image of Pluto the top image shows an elevation map with a circle of dots around the elevated zone known as Tartarus Dorsa.
The (bottom) map shows orange methane accumulation within this elevated circle but then also shows methane on the poorly resolved portion of Pluto indicating the area heavily populated by methane on the opposite side of Pluto are also elevated zones.  Sputnik Planitia on the other hand is a deep basin. In other words, just like Mars, Pluto has a collapsed basin directly opposite an elevated zone.

Bright orange methane accumulation between 30 and 330 degrees indicate this area is very mountainous (elevated). Methane naturally accumulates at higher elevations on Pluto. This is also supportive evidence that the side of Pluto facing Charon is a positive gravity anomaly as it has more elevation hence more mass. I deal with this issue in more detail on page 72.

If you were to turn the below flat map into a sphere Hellas basin and Alba Patera (volcano) would be directly aligned opposite to each other and the same holds true for Pluto's Sputnik Planitia basin and the opposite elevated side of the planet.

What are the odds that an object would just happen to impact Mars at the exact opposite spot to its largest (not highest) volcano Alba Patera coincidentally creating the lowest spot on Mars?

Olympus Mons is the highest and gravitationally densest spot but Alba Patera is larger than Olympus. Alba Patera is directly opposite Hellas and Olympus Mons is not far from being directly aligned opposite to that same lowest point on Mars.

I'm suggesting these two high and low features are related to each other. Interestingly just like Sputnik Planitia's basin is directly opposite Pluto/Charon's greatest gravitational pull so too is Hellas Planitia's basin relative to the Olympus Mons zone.

The point of highest gravity nearly directly opposite the point of lowest gravity on both planets is too much of a coincidence to be coincidence, they are related.

This gravity map shows how Olympus Mons and other nearby points exhibit high gravity zones mostly in direct correlation to their vertical height.

Typically the higher the land mass the heavier so the greater the gravity and conversely lower topography areas tend to have less land mass in turn creating less gravity. This doesn't always hold true as there is a lot of subsurface frozen water which is less dense than rock.

Hellas basin shows an outer ring of blue low gravity also below zero elevation with an inner circle of green and yellow higher gravity above zero elevation. The blue outer ring indicates low gravity or less land mass (thinner crust) while the central yellow green area is thicker.

This next map is a magnetic field map. Each area of interest whether planum or planitia (Elysium/Utopia, Syrtis Major/Isidis, Alba Patera, Olympus Mons/Hellas and all of the Tharsis Montes region relative to Vastitas Borealis) all seem to be suspiciously devoid of much if any magnetic influence. Take note how magnetic fields appear to be shaped around and away form zones of elevation along with their associated depressions.

Below is a topography map. I drew black lines roughly outlining the zones with magnetic fields. With blue lines I outlined the general area where the magnetic fields have their most intense variations. It is interesting how the magnetic field's strength move around and away from the volcanically elevated areas as well as the low lying nearby collapsed planitias. If magnetic fields are caused by interior molten metal then it would appear the molten metal resides below the oldest geologically unaltered, most heavily cratered impacted areas while the volcanically sunken and raised areas are mostly devoid of the material that is creating this magnetic field. Less disturbed zones apparently still have hot molten moving material creating some magnetic field while areas that have been altered by geological processes of internal material getting ejected and excavated have cooled and lost their magnetic fields.

More often than not, low elevation areas tend to have low gravity while elevated areas tend to have high gravity another reason to think Sputnik Planitia is a negative not positive gravity anomaly but magnetic energy seems to be more directly connected to older (less renewed) land masses the stable land areas have kept their magnetic fields in tact.

On Earth we assume a liquid molten metal below the surface sustains our magnetic field.

It's also interesting to me how the magnetic field's are layered mostly in horizontal line patterns alternating between intense to low intensity as if the spin of Mars has organized the layering of the lines of magnetism. This indicates whatever created these magnetic fields either was or is in a liquid state. This may be why they tend not to exist around areas that were geologically active. The fact the magnetic fields have frozen in place around and away from areas of geological activity suggest to me the fluid that created these fields stopped about the same time the geological activity stopped.

In an effort to strengthen his theory, about Sputnik Planitia being an impact site which doesn't have rings, Bill McKinnon compared SP to Hellas basin on Mars which also doesn't have rings and since everyone accepts Hellas as an impact site, therefore, SP could be an impact site. My question then becomes just how many traits does Hellas Planitia exhibit that would indicate it is an impact site or instead is a geological expressed collapsed land mass area. In essence, what do the characteristic traits of Hellas favor, impact or natural geological phenomenon?

This is Hellas Planitia in gray scale.

Hellas Basin in Gray Scale

Hellas basin does not have rings which is a pretty common feature of impact craters. Hellas has a raised plateau or planum in the center which is identically shaped to the pattern of the ridge line of the basin. This is a fairly common feature found in extinct volcanic calderas. A series of mud volcanoes line Hellas to the NE and SW and the fluid from those volcanoes has flowed into and has filled around the central raised plateau forming a moat. Hellas and the volcanoes are about the same age based on crater count density.

Something that is clear and obvious is that the moat within Hells has far, far fewer impacts than the edge of the outer rim.

This means the moat of fluid is much younger than the surrounding outer edge and this geological feature is not anywhere near as old as the surrounding land features. Theoretical impacts of this size are supposed to have only occurred more than 4 billion years ago and if geological activity exists they should erode becoming smaller over time.

In the above video, Bill displays a chart and says
Chances of getting an impact crater the size of Sputnik Planitia in the last 4 Ga is less than one percent. This makes Sputnik Planitia a very, very ancient structure?

Sputnik Planitia's North to South radius (not diameter) is 700 km while Hellas is roughly circular with a radius of 1,150 km. Hellas is about two thirds larger than Sputnik Planitia's longest axis. Lets put two and two together here. Bill says the size of the impactor at SP is so large it had to impact longer than 4 bya. Hellas is about twice that size so it would at least have to be older than 4 byr yet the impact crater counts within Hellas show it is much younger than the surrounding terrain.

Below
The raised mouths of the volcano's straddling Hellas are about 4 to 5 km above the yellow zero elevation area's.
Here's an elevation map showing clear evidence of fluid flowing into Hellas basin.

In this topography map green is 2 km below zero. I didn't want to clutter this image with lines and text so I left it pretty much as is. We can clearly see at least two raised volcano mouths along the south western edge and one along the north eastern edge. They are raised with a central mouth, the material has flowed into the depression or basin that has developed from subsurface material flowing out the volcano's mouths spilling onto the surface leaving behind a depression in the adjacent land just like we see near other volcanic areas on Mars.

Elevated land is in an atmospherically colder area than lower elevations so the fact that material is running down from the central raised peaks of these elevated mountains is a strong indicator they are volcanic in nature. The fact there are ripples, the land is smooth and lacking impact craters is an indication of a youthful surface relative to the surroundings.

The volcano to the north east of Hellas Planitia is called Hesperia and is referred to as a Planum but it is clearly a mud or shield volcano with a central peak as shown in red in the topographic map and in the below natural color map you can see how the material flowed out of the mouth. This material flowed SSW via Dao Vallis down into the depression that is Hellas Planitia.

Hesperia Planum an extinct mud volcano spilling into Hellas Planitia basin

The mouth and peak of the volcanoes south of Hellas are more easily seen in the topographical map but the material that flowed out of them and into the Hellas basin is very clear in this image. This area called a Planum is elevated into peaks in some areas. There are obvious signs of fluid or flow patterns. The flow is running down into Hellas Planitia erasing impact craters in it's path.

Underground pressures have pushed up material from below the surface creating volcanoes at the same time sucking material out of the Hellas Planitia area creating a basin. Adding to the influence of forces creating this Hellas depression is the strongest gravitational pull from directly opposite this site's location. It may have been the gravitational pull at Hellas that caused material to get squirted up along the edges creating the volcanoes.

Volcano's 1 and 2 (largest gravity on mars) are directly opposite Hellas basin which is the lowest elevation and gravity zone on Mars. I wouldn't think this would matter all that much if it weren't for one detected fact. Much of the dust dirt and rock in this Hellas area sits on a bed of dirty water ice. As conditions warm each season Hellas' atmospheric pressure increases dramatically and as a result of the seasonal change in temperature, frost develops on the floor in winter while the densest and warmest atmospheric conditions on Mars take place in the summer at this location. But there is more evidence of this depression being an old ocean floor not an impact site.

Hellas does not have a raised rim, the surrounding land area is basically level then it just starts to drop into a vast basin (no rings or raised rim) very indicative of a collapsed land area not an impact site. Volcanoes have pulled material out of the ground near its edge. There are no radial circular ring patterns. There is a central plateau surrounded by a deeper moat. The moat's crust is thin as detected by low gravity.

Excerpt from the book A Traveler's Guide to Mars Copyright © 2003 William K. Hartmann
 
The best-preserved ones [impact craters] have a bull's-eye rim pattern of concentric faulted cliffs and radial fractures, not unlike a bullet hole in plate glass, formed as the planetary crust responds to the overwhelming shock of the impact explosion. The full sequence of craters, from small to large, starts with simple bowl-shaped craters, then 20-km-scale craters with central mountains, then a broadening of the central mountain into a ring of peaks, and finally a full-fledged, 1,000-km-scale, multi-ring basin.

William Hartman suggests, well preserved large impacts look like bullet holes in glass.

Below compare Hellas to bullet holes in glass and Argyre crater

Notice how different Hellas and Argyre look?
Argyre has no nearby volcanoes, it has rings, it has ridges, there's no floating plateau, its not so deep, impact craters around the outer edges are not so abruptly ended and Argyre looks like a bullet hole in glass, Hellas does not. This is the difference between geologically created craters and impact craters on Mars.

Hellas Planitia

Argyre Crater looking much like a bullet hole in glass

Below left image, in an area around Valles Marineris the land seems to be dominated more by rock and dirt than water ice and dirt. There are many hills about 1 kilometer high in Juventae Chasma, which is located north of the main Valles Marineris canyon system like this one. The mountain peaks are sharp, angular and rigid. Right image is around crater rim of Krupac near equatorial latitude.

Obviously Mars has rocky features but there are also copious amounts of water ice in some places.
The blue colors in these images are false colored.

Things are a bit different, however, down south. This is the structure of the subsurface dirty water ice on Mars in the Hellas basin area as determined by the Odyssey GRS Team. The dirty ice is about 1 meter (3 feet) below the surface at minus 40 degrees latitude and rises to about 20 to 40 cm (8 to 16 inches) below the surface by minus 90 degrees latitude. In other words, Hellas planitia is structurally sitting on water ice its not rock its a combination of dust dirt and water ice.

NASA used a Gamma-Ray Spectrometer to measure neutrons which help identify the concentrations of water ice to rock and dirt at various depths on Mars.

Planetary Science Research Discoveries wrote a paper about this dirty water ice and its distribution properties on Mars.

H2O is all over the place around Hellas. This would make the structural integrity of the ground beneath the dirt very susceptible to temperature changes as well as gravitational pressures.

Just like permafrost on Earth warms melts and collapses, the same occurs in this Hellas basin.

In this image of impact craters in the Hellas basin notice how the ridge is smooth like melting ice cream. Look close at some of the smaller impacts and how several are being eroded or dissolved away. This process is occurring each season slowly erasing evidence of small impacts. This is why there is a sharp and dramatic transition around the edge of Hellas from being littered with impacts to hardly showing any signs of impacts in the basin itself. Extinct volcanoes excavated material from below the surface now temperatures soften the ices and gravity sucks it down.

Mars' temperature ranges from -220º F (-140º C) in the winters to upwards of 70º F (20º C) in the summers. The average temperature is around -81º F (-63º C). Hellas basin is an erosional effect. It's water ice has less structural integrity than rock. As nearby volcanoes ejected muddy rock the dirty water ice collapsed into the cavity or basin that was excavated by the expulsion process.

These two impact craters in the Hellas basin show water below the surface covered by dirt.

Image on left is actual image.

The image on the right is an artist impression of what it would look like if you scraped the dirt off the ice.

These two impacts (white boxes) are at the NE inner edge of Hellas.

Close up of same two impacts
There are lots of signs of water ice melting and moving the dirt in puddles of mud in this image. There are also lots of impact craters being slowly eroded away. In this area when objects hit they create raised rims frequently with multiple rings because below the surface is water ice. The energy released during the impact creates a fluid out of the ice making raised rims. So why doesn't Hellas have a raised rim or multiple rings if its and impact site?

Closeup of the same image. Notice how ices are erasing impact craters and the flow pattern. This is how the sharp edge of Hellas shows signs of hundreds or thousands of impact craters that just suddenly cease to exist into a round sunken basin.

Same two impacts from a different angle. Take note of the many smooth eroding impacts in this area.

On Earth frozen permafrost saturated with methane in Siberia Russia once supported vast areas of land until 60 years ago when the earth started to warm. As the gasses and ices are released, weakened by temperature the denser surface rock and dirt collapses into a basin. This crater collapse at Batagaika continues to this day as methane evaporates into the atmosphere.

Interestingly enough, Batagaika sits right next to a cone shaped pushed up land mass created by subsurface pressures (volcanic mountain) on Earth.

Here's an image of Ahuna Mons on Ceres and it is believed to have been created by cryovolcanic processes.

Wiki quote
Ahuna Mons is the largest mountain on the dwarf planet and asteroid Ceres. It protrudes above otherwise smooth terrain, it is not an impact feature, and it appears to be the only mountain of its kind on Ceres. Bright streaks run top to bottom on its slopes; these streaks are thought to be salt, similar to the better known Cererian bright spots, and likely resulted from cryovolcanic activity from Ceres's interior.

Ahuna Mons on Ceres

In these topographical maps of Ahuna you can see two impacts running (from bottom left to top right) diagonally off the black edges of the image. The impact's walls don't look anything like the circular pit directly adjacent to Ahuna.

I'm suggesting the crater next to Ahuna is the result of the same process that created Ahuna. The two are connected just like Batagaika, Hellas, Isidis, Utopia, Acidalia and Sputnik Planitia are all related to their adjacent volcanoes.

Sputnik Planitia basin is bounded by Tartarus Dorsa and Viking Terra (bulging land) and cryovolcanoes, Batagaika sits at the base of a volcanically created mountain, Ahuna cryovolcanic mound sits next to a basin, Hellas is bounded by Hesperia and Malea (volcanoes), Syrtis Major (volcano) is next to Isidis basin, Elysium (volcano) is next to Utopia basin, the entire Tharis Mons volcano area 40% of Mars borders Vastitas Borealis basin.

Here can be seen the two large impact craters near Ahuna. Their contrasting shape and size to the basin which touches Ahuna Mons is very clear in this image.

All these basins are found not only next to volcanic processes but in land that is primarily ice whether its water, methane or nitrogen.

Jackson Hole Wyoming is a basin or sink hole that is still sinking as the Grand Tetons and other mountain ranges rise up around the basin.

Some land is pushed up and rises while nearby land sinks into a basin.

Once again I'm standing in opposition to main stream science which says Hellas basin is an impact site supposedly 3.8 billion years old.

If it were that old, wouldn't there be more impacts contained within the basin itself and the transition of impact frequency from center to outer edge be more gradual?

Highway 89 in Jackson Hole sinking as of March 17th 2017

Lake Laki in Iceland displays the same land features. bulging volcanically created mountains with lava flow surround a nearby collapsed basin which in turn created a lake called Laki.

If Helas basin were an impact basin it should display ring patterns, it does not.
If it were an impact site, would there be a raised central plateau (not peak) surrounded by a moat?

Nearby mud volcanoes sucked the subsurface material out from this area creating planum's which created the Hellas basin. Hellas basin has the densest atmosphere on Mars this combined with its low elevation make it one of the warmest areas on Mars in the southern summer. The winter seasonal frost that develops exists because of the dense atmosphere which is created each summer, it then condenses, freezes out and deposits onto the surface as frost.

These next 3 images demonstrate flow patterns on the north eastern edge of Hellas Planitia.

Below image.
Your turn.
Do you see what I see?

This becomes the proverbial, what came first the chicken or the egg scenario.
In our case, what came first the volcanic mound or the collapsed canyon.

It seems to me it just depends on the conditions and composition of the terrain. An erosional, gravitational or compressional collapsing land mass could easily force material to squirt out from a nearby area pushing land upward. On the other hand, internal heat pressure pushing mounds of material up could easily deplete nearby material causing the land to collapse. If we use Batagaika as an example the volcanic mountain existed first then the land collapsed as temperature softened it. Impacts being slightly more numerous around Syrtis Major than inside Isidis Planitia also support the idea the volcanic mounds form first then the crust of land collapses.

Hellas basin is a collapsed land zone bounded by two massive mud volcanoes. The subsurface area is mostly water ice which gets softened seasonally. As one geologic feature rises the other falls and the subsurface material is saturated with frozen water ice which is periodically heated enough to flow.

Below image is closeup of above area indicated by red arrow.

You can clearly see in this closeup how smooth the ground is, its texture is similar to melting ice cream. There is water ice just below the surface which softens in the summer and flows.

The next six images are all the same area of the western edge of Hellas known as Hellas Terrace and Hellas Chaos covered in frost displaying evidence of fluid flowing down ridges.

A thicker atmosphere in Hellas basin in the summer freezes and creates frost in the winter. The thick atmosphere in Hellas is created because of the presence of water ice below the surface and the low elevation which makes it warmer in this area in the south pole summer. Additionally, Mars' south pole faces more directly toward the sun than the north pole and Mars is closest to the Sun at this time. All these factors work together to create a thicker warmer atmosphere at Hellas than elsewhere on Mars. Hellas acts like a bowl holding its moisture until winter.

Frost in Hellas during south pole winter.

Topographical map of same area

Zooming in to same area.
Multiple flow patterns and erosion erasing impact craters while smoothing the ridge line.

Closer still.

Most of these final images were placed here because they are simply spectacular but they also have education value as they demonstrate how the subsurface dirty water ice creates flow patterns and run off from cliff faces. You can also see how impact craters are eroded and dissolved from view by this process. This is an ongoing process. Its taking place right now, this isn't a 3.8 billion year old one time event.

Scientists date these erosional processes (which they call an impact) on Mars at beyond 3 to 3.8 billion years ago but when water reaches 35 degrees Celsius or 95 degrees Fahrenheit which it has, it doesn't take long for ice to start flowing. The southern hemisphere of Mars gets warmer than the northern since the south pole is more directly aimed at the sun when Mars is nearest to the Sun. Hellas Planitia is between latitude -30 and -55 degrees south of the equator and its the lowest elevation point on Mars, all this combined means it gets warm enough for ice to flow, possibly on a seasonal basis.

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Hellas Planitia in south pole summer.


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Hellas Planitia in south pole winter.

I'm glad Bill McKinnon chose to compare Sputnik Planitia to Hellas Planitia else I wouldn't have learned so much about Hellas on Mars. I am comfortable saying Hellas is an ice dominated basin (extinct ocean) on Mars created by natural volcanic and gravitational processes. It is not an impact site just as Sputnik Planitia is not an impact site. The only thing Hellas and Sputnik Planitia have in common with an impact site is they are mostly round but then again so are a lot of other features like volcano mouths, whirlpools, dust devils, tornadoes, galaxies, sink holes, Kettle Holes (Lakes), pingos and calderas. Just because a depression in the land is round doesn't mean its an impact site.

Neither Hellas nor Sputnik have rings, ejecta or an uplifted rim, both appear to be natural geological collapsed gravitationally weak (negative not positive anomaly) thin crusted spots oppositely aligned to gravitationally strong areas displaying signs of frozen ices in a semi fluid state straddled by volcanic processes with increased atmospheric pressures or fogs which create frost and snow both show signs of fluid like ices flowing into their basins with extremely young surfaces evidenced by a lack of impact craters. To me this all spells out natural ongoing geology not one time event impacts from 3.8 to 4 billions years ago.

I hope your view of Mars and Pluto has been altered and you never see the planitia basin's of Hellas and Sputnik the same.

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