Reconnaissance Orbiter Helps See Buried Mars Flood Channels

NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has provided images allowing scientists for the first time to create a 3-D reconstruction of ancient water channels below the Martian surface. The spacecraft took numerous images during the past few years that showed channels attributed to catastrophic flooding in the last 500 million years. During this period, Mars had been otherwise considered cold and dry. These channels are essential to understanding the extent to which recent hydrologic activity prevailed during such arid conditions. They also help scientists determine whether the floods could have induced episodes of climate change.

The estimated size of the flooding appears to be comparable to the ancient mega-flood that created the Channeled Scablands in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, in eastern Washington.



www.jpl.nasa.gov...



Washington state scab lands


Wish I could have seen these ancient floods first hand...

We live in such cool times. I wonder what the next decade will look like in terms of discoveries.

reply to post by canucks555

Wish I could have seen these ancient floods first hand...

From a high place. A really high place.

reply to post by Phage


There have been many different theories about the formation of Valles Marineris that have changed over the years.[5] Ideas in the 1970s were erosion by water or thermokarst activity, which is the melting of permafrost in glacial climes. Thermokarst activity may contribute, but erosion by water is a problematic mechanism because liquid water cannot exist in most current Martian surface conditions, which typically experience about 1% earth’s atmospheric pressure and a temperature range of 148 K (−125 °C; −193 °F) to 310 K (37 °C; 98 °F) kelvin. However, scientists agree that there was liquid water flowing on the Martian surface in the past. Valles Marineris may have been formed by flowing water at this time. Another hypothesis by McCauley in 1972 was that the canyons formed by withdrawal of subsurface magma. Around 1989 Tanaka and Golombek proposed a theory of formation by tensional fracturing. The most agreed upon theory today is that Valles Marineris was formed by rift faults like the East African Rift, later made bigger by erosion and collapsing of the rift wall.


The flowing water theory gets a bump after this find Now THAT would be biblical!

reply to post by canucks555

Flowing and standing water on Mars left the hypothesis stage quite a while ago. The theory is very well established now.

That catastrophic flooding occurred is something new. And fascinating.

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by canucks555

 

Flowing and standing water on Mars left the hypothesis stage quite a while ago. The theory is very well established now.

That catastrophic flooding occurred is something new. And fascinating.

Actually, we've known about catastrophic flooding on Mars since at least 1976, when the Viking orbiters imaged huge outflow channels between Kasei Valles and Chryse Planetia (where the Viking 1 lander set-down). Link

The difference is that those floods are believed to have occurred 2 - 3.7 billion years ago (link) whereas this recent study suggests massive flooding within the last 500 million years.

reply to post by Saint Exupery

Thanks.
Only half a billion years ago...ok...that's something new. Shouldn't have been much ice or water available on the surface at that point.

Thanks guys, mars seems to be loaded with interesting stuff...

This needs ATS attention, come on if haven't already flagged this, do the community a favor...

Peace

Many scientists think the Chryse channels likely were formed by the catastrophic release of ground water,

Maybe it (the water) blasted out from under the ground? Like a mega-geyser (s) ?
What if a comet/asteroid impact type of scenario unleashed an underground ocean onto the surface..?
possible?

Originally posted by Phage
reply to post by canucks555

 

Flowing and standing water on Mars left the hypothesis stage quite a while ago. The theory is very well established now.

That catastrophic flooding occurred is something new. And fascinating.

Phage could you point to what you have found is the best (most credible) sources for me to educate myself on the water history of Mars? I find this planet so fascinating.

Originally posted by canucks555
Many scientists think the Chryse channels likely were formed by the catastrophic release of ground water,

Maybe it (the water) blasted out from under the ground? Like a mega-geyser (s) ?
What if a comet/asteroid impact type of scenario unleashed an underground ocean onto the surface..?
possible?

edit on 11-3-2013 by canucks555 because: (no reason given)

Absolutely possible.
S&F.
A cometary impact right at the opposite (the huge depession) point of the Tharsis Region.

Maybe it was... before the cometary impact, that hit Mars right to the opposite extremity of the great Tharsis Volcanoes Region. The impact it created the volcanoes and it threw outside material in the space that formed Phobos and Deimos.

But this is only my theory.

Well, seems confirmed:

[1] We report independent results from two subgroups of the Mars Express Radio Science (MaRS) team who independently analyzed Mars Express (MEX) radio tracking data for the purpose of determining consistently the gravitational attraction of the moon Phobos on the MEX spacecraft, and hence the mass of Phobos. New values for the gravitational parameter (GM = 0.7127 ± 0.0021 × 10−3 km3/s2) and density of Phobos (1876 ± 20 kg/m3) provide meaningful new constraints on the corresponding range of the body's porosity (30% ± 5%), provide a basis for improved interpretation of the internal structure. We conclude that the interior of Phobos likely contains large voids. When applied to various hypotheses bearing on the origin of Phobos, these results are inconsistent with the proposition that Phobos is a captured asteroid.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com...

Hollow Phobos, and it was not captured by Mars