A Volcanic Formation?

This massive formation to the right of Phillae's landing spot is very strange. At the top of the formation is huge bulge of material suspended unbelievably above a huge vertical drop. It llooks like toothpaste being squeezed out of the tube. Below and to the right is another and further round a third. These look remarkably like lava flows on volcanos on Earth, not the runny bright orange molten ones, but the semi-solid very slow moving ones, where the lava is all crumbly and brittle.

 

From the dark and more "rock" like appearance, it suggests that most of the volatile ices escaped when the material was semi-molten. The material below appears far brighter, suggesting a higher ice content and that it is the surface the semi-molten material flowed onto.

 

Is Hatmehit in fact a large Caldera or a large impact site where the heat of the impact melted the comet material and thrust up this more refractory crater rim, that resists erosion more because of its low volatiles content? The molten material within the crater would form a flat level surface, however in the time it took to cool and become solid, the comets rotation would tend to slosh it to one side of the crater, creating a series of ripples or steps. There are two distinct levels within the basin with the ridge defining them perpendicular to the direction of the comet's rotation.

 

This effect can also be seen in the Imhotep depression, one of the steps being marked by the scarp that runs across the flat basin floor. Cheops and the two other large boulders may be bits of the impactor that survived and floated to the surface. Just another one of my wild theories. :-)

 

Credits: ESA/Rosetta/MPS for OSIRIS Team MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/SSO/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA

Done