Emerging Underground Aquifers Formed Martian Lakes, Seas

SpaceRef ^ | Thursday, October 21, 2010 | Planetary Science Institute

[SunkenCiv]

...Citing evidence found in the planet's northern plains south of Gemini Scopuli in Planum Boreum, Rodriguez proposes in an article published in Icarus that groundwater emerged through extensive and widespread fractures forming the floors of ancient continental-scale basins on Mars. This led to the formation of river systems, large-scale regional erosion, sedimentary deposition and water ponding.

This model does not require sudden massive groundwater discharges, he said. Instead, it advocates for groundwater discharges being widespread, long-lived and common in the northern plains of Mars.

"With the loss over time of water from the subsurface aquifer, areas of the northern plains ultimately collapsed, creating the rough hilly surfaces we see today. Some plateaus may have avoided this fate and preserved sedimentary plains containing an immense record of hydrologic activity," he said. "The geologic record in the collapsed hilly regions would have been jumbled and largely lost.

"This model implies that groundwater discharges within basin settings on Mars may have been frequent and led to formation of mud pools, lakes and oceans. In addition, our model indicates this could have happened at any point in the planet's history," he said. "There could have been many oceans on Mars over time." If life existed in Martian underground systems, life forms could have been brought up to the surface via the discharges of these deep-seated fluids. Organisms and their fossils may therefore be preserved within some of these sedimentary strata, Rodriguez said.

[SunkenCiv]

martian aquifers site:Freerepublic.com

Google

[SunkenCiv]

• NASA Mars Rover's First Soil Analysis Yields Surprises -- One unexpected finding was the Moessbauer spectrometer's detection of a mineral called olivine, which does not survive weathering well. This spectrometer identifies different types of iron-containing minerals; scientists believe many of the minerals on Mars contain iron... The lack of weathering suggested by the presence of olivine might be evidence that the soil particles are finely ground volcanic material, Squyres said. Another possible explanation is that the soil layer where the measurements were taken is extremely thin, and the olivine is actually in a rock under the soil... an alpha particle X-ray spectrometer... "measures X-ray radiation emitted by Mars samples, and from this data we can derive the elemental composition of martian soils and rocks," said Dr. Johannes Brueckner, rover science team member... The instrument found the most prevalent elements in the soil patch were silicon and iron. It also found significant levels of chlorine and sulfur, characteristic of soils at previous martian landing sites but unlike soil composition on Earth.

[cripplecreek]

Don’t look at me, I haven’t taken a leak there.

[SunkenCiv]

:’) Ices (including water ices) normally locked up in the soil are released by the energy of impacts large and small. Impacts large enough to do so produce a short-lived atmosphere in a limited area, which yields a temporary atmospheric pressure permitting liquid water to exist. That’s why these apparent erosion patterns exist; IMV at least some of these are old, refrozen mud flows. Regardless, this is the reason that these “rivers” appear to arise from nowhere and flow nowhere. The conditions permitting liquid water to exist dissipate as the water vapor cools back into ice and precipitates. :’)

[SunkenCiv]

“Water’s cold.”

“And deep.”

[cripplecreek]

*Bloop*

Real deep.

[hinckley buzzard]

So...where did all that water go?

[Patrick1]

I knew this years ago! Didn’t you guys see that Arnold Schwarzenegger flick with Sharon Stone?

[SunkenCiv]

• Where on Earth has our water come from? -- Evidence that water came to Earth during its formation from cosmic dust, rather than following later in asteroids, has been shown by a group of international scientists... Water could have been adsorbed onto minerals that created the Earth... De Leeuw's work challenges the common assumption made by astronomers that the Earth's water originated from bodies in the asteroid belt. 'The work will be of tremendous interest to those modelling the geology and habitability of extrasolar terrestrial planets,' comments Philip Armitage, an expert in astrophysical and planetary sciences at the University of Colorado, Boulder, US.

[Tzfat]

Martian Chronicles

[SunkenCiv]

I really like that one, I watch it as a comedy though, so there may be something wrong with me.