Observational History
The name Sinus Meridiani was given to the a classic albedo feature on Mars by the French astronomer Camille Flammarion in the late 1870s. Prior astronomers, notably the German team of Wilhelm Beer and Johann Heinrich Mädler and then the Italian Giovanni Schiaparelli, had chosen a particular point on Mars as being the location of its prime meridian when they charted their observations. Accepting suggestions that dark areas on the surface of Mars were seas or oceans, Flammarion named a dark area at that point "Sinus Meridiani", literally "Meridian Bay", when he worked on his compilation and analysis of all prior observations of Mars.
Since flyby and orbital spacecraft imagery of Mars began to become available in the 1960s, dark-light albedo features on the planet have seen shifting of names to reflect the true nature of the topography, and Sinus Meridiani consequently was given a new designation, Terra Meridiani ("Meridian Land"). . However, the older and the newer designations are both in current use. The U.S. Geological Survey considers the "Sinus Meridiani" nomenclature canonical
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