The gently rolling landscape is yellowish brown and strewn with rocks in the centimeter to meter size range. The rocks are volcanic and were probably deposited in the area by distant large impacts. Between the rocks are drifts of fine-grained material, and locally bigger drifts cover the rocky debris. The surface of the fine grained material is loosely cemented, probably by water-soluble salts such as sulfates, to form a crust. Impact craters are absent in the near field, although the rim of a large crater is visible on the horizon.
Small craters are absent because small meteorites burn up or disintegrate in the thin atmosphere.
Viking 2 landed on a level, rock-strewn, but otherwise featureless plain. The Viking landers measured the chemical composition of the soils at the two sites and performed a variety of chemical experiments on the soils, as part of their search for life. However, the analyses were incomplete. The analyses were almost identical at the two sites, suggesting that what was analyzed was dust homogenized over the whole planet through repeated participation in global dust storms. Somewhat surprisingly, the soils contain no complex organic materials despite a continuous infall in meteorites.