This image from India’s MOM mission highlights a region with stress fractures – cracks – in Mars’ crust that can run as much as 3 miles deep. They’re called fossa, sometimes grabens, and they exist on Earth too. Yes, you are riding on a cracked surface. Have a good day.
Elsewhere on Mars, there’s a volcano notable for being about the same height as Mount Everest. (It’s tiny compared to other Martian volcanoes). The linked image shows a forked valley sloping down from the volcano.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ceraunius_Tholus
Studies of the valleys suggest they were originally formed by lava flows and later altered by water flow. Think about that. It would require an atmosphere that was warm, wet and large enough to rain down into the caldera at the altitude of Everest’s peak.
Obviously the water cycle and atmospheric dynamics are different on a young planet with about 1/3 of earth’s gravity.
The best estimate of when the volcano’s caldera and channels began filling with water date back to the Late Heavy Bombardment, right about the same time bacterial colonies begin to appear in Earth’s fossil record.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/JB095iB09p14325/abstract