Frozen beneath a region of cracked and pitted plains on Mars lies a basin with a diameter of about 2,050 miles. Aptly named Utopia Planitia, or "plains of paradise", it results from a major impact early in Mars' history.
Over the aeons water vapor, condensed from the extremely thin atmosphere as snow and weighed down by frozen carbon dioxide, filled this basin, which now harbors as much water as what is contained in Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes.
Concerning the foundation of a future human settlement on Mars it may just be the most suited site yet found.

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Univ. of Arizona

Utopia Planitia

The plunging canyon, known as Chasma Boreale is a 500 km-long, 2 km-deep trench that cuts Mars' north polar ice cap in two. It is thought to be a relatively old formation that formed long before the distinctive spiral features surrounding it.
These features made of frozen carbon dioxid and water ice form when in the winter season temperatures on Mars' north polar ice cap get cold enough for around 30 percent of the carbon dioxide in its thin atmosphere to precipitate alongside water ice onto the cap, adding a seasonal layer of up to a metre in thickness. Strong winds then shape the ice spirals over time, twisting them via the same Coriolis force that causes hurricanes to spiral on Earth.

Chasma Boreale

As the sun sets over Aeolis Mons, located at the center of Gale crater and created by sediments that were once laid down by rivers and streams that may have provided favorable conditions for microbial life 3.5 billion years ago, its light scatters off the fine particles distributed by one of Mars' common dust storms. This permits the short wave length blue light to penetrate the atmosphere more efficiently than the light of other colors, which gets dispersed more widely, resulting in this beautiful, blueishly tinted sunset. 
Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Texas A&M Univ.

Sunset over Aeolis Mons

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