Mars flooding: Ancient mega-flood on Red Planet revealed in 3D

Mars flooding: The discovery shows that a major underground channel generated by an ancient mega-flood is twice as deep as thought, and sheds light on how water shaped the surface of Mars, scientists added.

|
NASA/AP
This image provided by NASA and taken by a camera aboard NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows the equatorial plains region known as Elysium Planitia on Mars. Using a radar instrument aboard the spacecraft, scientists made a 3-D map of flood channels below the surface of Mars, apparently created by past flooding. The findings were reported online, March 7, in the journal Science.

Radar scans of Mars have revealed the first 3D look at water-carved channels buried beneath the Red Planet's surface, researchers say.

The discovery shows that a major underground channel generated by an ancient mega-flood is twice as deep as thought, and sheds light on how water shaped the surface of Mars, scientists added.

Mars today is cold and dry, with most of its water locked in polar ice caps, and researchers think its surface has been largely barren for the past 2.5 billion years. However, channels crisscrossing its surface hint that waters once flooded the Red Planet's surface.

The largest of the channels engraved into Mars within the past 500 million years belong to the 600-mile-long (1,000 kilometer) Marte Vallis system. Probing Marte Vallis could offer hints on a time otherwise thought of as cold and dry. [The Search for Water on Mars (Photos)]

However, Marte Vallis lies in Elysium Planitia, an expanse of plains along the Martian equator. This area is the youngest volcanic region on Mars, and massive volcanism throughout the past several hundred million years has covered most of its surface with lava, burying evidence of its recent history, including the source and most of the length of Marte Vallis.

Now, using the shallow radar onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, scientists have scanned beneath the surface of Elysium Planitia. Their data helped generate a 3D reconstruction of Marte Vallis, revealing many details that lava flows buried long ago.

"This is the first time we've been able to see buried flood channels on a planet other than the Earth," lead study author Gareth Morgan, a geologist at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum, told SPACE.com.

The researchers found the channels of Marte Vallis were at least 230 feet (70 meters) deep, making them at least twice as deep as thought.

"That shows previous ideas of erosion, of how much water have gone through Marte Vallis, have been underestimated," Morgan said. "There was more significant flooding than before thought, and it's interesting to think of where this water might have come from during this relatively dry period."

By mapping the buried channels, researchers discovered the ancient gigantic floods that probably created Marte Vallis apparently originated deep underground from a now-buried portion of fissures known as Cerberus Fossae.

"The source of the floodwaters suggests they originated from a deep groundwater reservoir and may have been released by local tectonic or volcanic activity," Morgan said.

Marte Vallis is similar to more ancient systems of channels on Mars. The gargantuan floods that generated these channels may also have briefly radically changed the Red Planet's climate just as giant floods of Arctic water have on Earth. Learning more about Martian floods could provide information on key parts of that world's history, researchers said.

"There's also evidence of channels buried by lava or other sorts of materials in other areas on Mars, and we'd like to apply the same sort of radar studies to those," Morgan said.

The scientists detailed their findings online today (March 7) in the journal Science.

Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Original article on SPACE.com.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Mars flooding: Ancient mega-flood on Red Planet revealed in 3D
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2013/0307/Mars-flooding-Ancient-mega-flood-on-Red-Planet-revealed-in-3D
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe