Abstract
On June 15 and 19, 2008, the Phoenix mission lander dug a small trench in the hard ground of the Martian Arctic highlands. Immediately, a white patina became visible. After four sols, an enlarged image showed that part of the whitish veneer had disappeared. Only water ice can show this sort of behavior. The patina was transformed directly from a solid to a gaseous state, skipping the intermediate fluid state, a phenomenon that occurs at low pressure and that is known as sublimation. The experience proves that at those high latitudes, the Martian soil is impregnated with ice. The search for water and ice on Mars is one of the main obsessions in regard to the Red Planet, and the reason is simple: as far as we know, life requires water. The largest reservoir of water may have been an ancient ocean that covered the northern lowlands of Mars for over 25% of the planet’s surface. How do we know of the past existence of this ocean? When and why did a huge amount of water disappear, leaving the barren and dry land we see today?On the pages that follow, we will see that not only have large amounts of ice been found on ground of high latitude on Mars, but that ice has also been common at lower latitudes. Strange glacial tongues similar to terrestrial rock glaciers, degraded craters due to ice relaxation in their core, enigmatic chaotic zones: they all seem to show the importance of ice in the evolution of the Martian surface. But there is also evidence of periods when water flowed in the liquid state: torrents similar to earthly drainage networks, long channels hundreds of kilometers long excavated by violent streams, and temporary patterns formed by local ice melting. Perhaps there were lakes on Mars, and most probably an entire ocean. How did the water disappear?
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
Because the planetary nomenclature identifies “Chaos” as a terrain of jumbled blocks, there are also features called chaos terrains on Mercury, Europa and Pluto. However, they have a different origin from the Martian examples.
- 2.
As usual, we shall be using international units, and when appropriate, we will not report the units in the main text for simplicity. Conductivity has units W/(°C M), heat flow of W/m2.
- 3.
Pedersen, G. B. M., & Head, J. W. (2011). Chaos formation by sublimation of volatile-rich substrate: Evidence from Galaxias Chaos, Mars. Icarus, 211(1), 316–329.
- 4.
Komar, P. D. (1980). Modes of sediment transport in channelized water flows with ramifications to the erosion of the Martian outflow channels. Icarus, 42(3), 317–329.
- 5.
Moscardelli, L., Dooley, T., Dunlap, D., Jackson, M., & Wood, L. (2012). Deep-water polygonal fault systems as terrestrial analogs for large-scale Martian polygonal terrains. GSA Today, 22(8), 4–9.
- 6.
De Blasio, F. V. (2014). Possible erosion marks of bottom oceanic currents in the northern lowlands of Mars. Planetary and Space Science, 93, 10–21.
- 7.
Parker, T. J., Gorsline, D. S., Saunders, R. S., Pieri, D. C., & Schneeberger, D. M. (1993). Coastal geomorphology of the Martian northern plains. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, 98(E6), 11061–11078.
- 8.
Di Achille, G., & Hynek, B. M. (2010). Ancient ocean on Mars supported by global distribution of deltas and valleys. Nature Geoscience, 3(7), 459–463.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
De Blasio, F.V. (2018). Ice, Water. In: Mysteries of Mars. Springer Praxis Books(). Praxis, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74784-2_4
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74784-2_4
Published:
Publisher Name: Praxis, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74783-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74784-2
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyPhysics and Astronomy (R0)