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Geological Evidence of Planet-Wide Groundwater System on Mars
Ori, Gian Gabriele; Salese, Francesco; Pondrelli, Monica +2 more
The scale of groundwater upwelling on Mars, as well as its relation to sedimentary systems, remains an ongoing debate. Several deep craters (basins) in the northern equatorial regions show compelling signs that large amounts of water once existed on Mars at a planet-wide scale. The presence of water-formed features, including fluvial Gilbert and s…
A Diverse Array of Fluvial Depositional Systems in Arabia Terra: Evidence for mid-Noachian to Early Hesperian Rivers on Mars
Williams, Rebecca M. E.; Fawdon, Peter; Grindrod, Peter M. +4 more
Branching to sinuous ridges systems, hundreds of kilometers in length and comprising layered strata, are present across much of Arabia Terra, Mars. These ridges are interpreted as depositional fluvial channels, now preserved as inverted topography. Here we use high-resolution image and topographic data sets to investigate the morphology of these d…
Subsurface Sediment Mobilization in the Southern Chryse Planitia on Mars
Hauber, E.; Michael, G.; Brož, P. +2 more
The southern part of the smooth plain of Chryse Planitia on Mars hosts a large population of kilometer-sized (from 0.2 to 20 km) landforms spread over a wide area. Based on the investigation of a small part of this area, Komatsu et al. (2016, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2015.12.032) p…
The Geology and Astrobiology of McLaughlin Crater, Mars: An Ancient Lacustrine Basin Containing Turbidites, Mudstones, and Serpentinites
Michalski, Joseph R.; Glotch, T. D.; Rogers, A. Deanne +4 more
McLaughlin crater is a 92-km diameter complex crater that formed on Mars 4 billion years ago. The resulting basin was the site of a large ( 3,000 km2), deep ( 500 m), voluminous ( 1,500 km3) Martian lake circa 3.8 Ga. While there is strong evidence that hundreds of lakes have existed on Mars at some point during the same time…
Modeled Subglacial Water Flow Routing Supports Localized Intrusive Heating as a Possible Cause of Basal Melting of Mars' South Polar Ice Cap
Butcher, F. E. G.; Balme, M. R.; Conway, S. J. +1 more
The discovery of an 20-km-wide area of bright subsurface radar reflections, interpreted as liquid water, beneath the Martian south polar layered deposits (SPLD) in data from the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) instrument, and the discovery of two geologically recent potential eskers (landforms produced by subgla…
Groundwater Control and Process Variability on the Equatorial Layered Deposits of Kotido Crater, Mars
Hauber, E.; Rossi, A. P.; Pondrelli, M. +4 more
Understanding the origin of the Hesperian-aged sulfate-bearing Equatorial Layered Deposits (ELDs) is crucial to infer Mars' climatic conditions during their formation and to assess their habitability potential. We investigated well-exposed ELDs in Kotido crater (Arabia Terra) and produced a detailed geological map of the crater infill, distinguish…
Quantitative High-Resolution Reexamination of a Hypothesized Ocean Shoreline in Cydonia Mensae on Mars
Catling, David C.; Sholes, Steven F.; Montgomery, David R.
Primary support for ancient Martian oceans has relied on qualitative interpretations of hypothesized shorelines on relatively low-resolution images and data. We present a toolkit for quantitatively identifying paleoshorelines using topographic, morphological, and spectroscopic evaluations. In particular, we apply the validated topographic expressi…
The Lomonosov Crater Impact Event: A Possible Mega-Tsunami Source on Mars
Bouley, S.; Séjourné, A.; Lagain, A. +6 more
Recent research suggests that major meteorite impact events into a Late Hesperian/Early Amazonian ocean likely produced a mega-tsunami that would have resurfaced coastal areas in northwestern Arabia Terra. The orientations of the associated lobate deposits, a conspicuous type of landforms called Thumbprint Terrain, suggests that if an impact event…
Characterizing Average Electron Densities in the Martian Dayside Upper Ionosphere
Gurnett, D. A.; Němec, F.; Morgan, D. D. +5 more
We use more than 10 years of the Martian topside ionospheric data measured by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding radar sounder on board the Mars Express spacecraft to derive an empirical model of electron densities from the peak altitude up to 325 km. Altogether, 16,044 electron density profiles obtained at spacecraft a…
The Deposition and Alteration History of the Northeast Syrtis Major Layered Sulfates
Ehlmann, B. L.; Quinn, D. P.
Ancient stratigraphy on Isidis Basin's western margin records the history of water on early Mars. Noachian units are overlain by layered, basaltic composition sedimentary rocks that are enriched in polyhydrated sulfates and capped by more resistant units. The layered sulfates—uniquely exposed at northeast Syrtis Major—comprise a sedimentary sequen…