The density of impact craters in the 100 to 2,000 metres (330 to 6,560 ft) range is close to half the average for lunar maria.

Chryse Planitia shows evidence of water erosion in the past, and is the bottom end for many outflow channels from the southern highlands as well as from Valles Marineris and the flanks of the Tharsis bulge.

[4] Several ancient river valleys discovered in Chryse Planitia by the Viking Orbiters, as part of the Viking program, provided strong evidence for a great deal of running water on the surface of Mars.

[5][6][7] It has been theorized that the Chryse basin may have contained a large lake or an ocean during the Hesperian or early Amazonian periods since all of the large outflow channels entering it end at the same elevation, at which some surface features suggest an ancient shoreline may be present.

The Mars Pathfinder landed in Ares Vallis, at the end of one of the outflow channels emptying into Chryse.