Search Publications
Water Vapor Vertical Profiles on Mars in Dust Storms Observed by TGO/NOMAD
Aoki, S.; Vandaele, A. C.; Daerden, F. +16 more
It has been suggested that dust storms efficiently transport water vapor from the near-surface to the middle atmosphere on Mars. Knowledge of the water vapor vertical profile during dust storms is important to understand water escape. During Martian Year 34, two dust storms occurred on Mars: a global dust storm (June to mid-September 2018) and a r…
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…
Solar Wind Implantation Into the Lunar Regolith: Monte Carlo Simulations of H Retention in a Surface With Defects and the H2 Exosphere
Farrell, W. M.; Killen, R. M.; Tucker, O. J. +1 more
The solar wind implants protons into the top 20-30 nm of lunar regolith grains, and the implanted hydrogen will diffuse out of the regolith but also interact with oxygen in the regolith oxides. We apply a statistical approach to estimate the diffusion of hydrogen in the regolith hindered by forming temporary bonds with regolith oxygen atoms. A Mon…
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…
Infrared Spectroscopy of Large, Low-Albedo Asteroids: Are Ceres and Themis Archetypes or Outliers?
Emery, Joshua P.; Rivkin, Andrew S.; Howell, Ellen S.
Low-albedo, hydrated objects dominate the list of the largest asteroids. These objects have varied spectral shapes in the 3-µm region, where diagnostic absorptions due to volatile species are found. Dawn's visit to Ceres has extended the view shaped by ground-based observing and shown that world to be a complex one, potentially still experie…
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…