Early Mars was covered in ice sheets, not flowing rivers, researchers
say

Date:
August 3, 2020
Source:
University of British Columbia
Summary:
A large number of the valley networks scarring Mars's surface were
carved by water melting beneath glacial ice, not by free-flowing
rivers as previously thought, according to new research. The
findings effectively throw cold water on the dominant 'warm and wet
ancient Mars' hypothesis, which postulates that rivers, rainfall
and oceans once existed on the red planet.



FULL STORY ========================================================================== [Illustration of Mars, | Credit: (c) dottedyeti / stock.adobe.com]
Illustration of Mars, polar ice cap (stock image).

Credit: (c) dottedyeti / stock.adobe.com [Illustration of Mars, | Credit:
(c) dottedyeti / stock.adobe.com] Illustration of Mars, polar ice cap
(stock image).

Credit: (c) dottedyeti / stock.adobe.com Close A large number of the
valley networks scarring Mars's surface were carved by water melting
beneath glacial ice, not by free-flowing rivers as previously thought, according to new UBC research published today in Nature Geoscience.

The findings effectively throw cold water on the dominant "warm and wet
ancient Mars" hypothesis, which postulates that rivers, rainfall and
oceans once existed on the red planet.


==========================================================================
To reach this conclusion, lead author Anna Grau Galofre, former PhD
student in the department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences,
developed and used new techniques to examine thousands of Martian
valleys. She and her co-authors also compared the Martian valleys to
the subglacial channels in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago and uncovered striking similarities.

"For the last 40 years, since Mars's valleys were first discovered, the assumption was that rivers once flowed on Mars, eroding and originating
all of these valleys," says Grau Galofre. "But there are hundreds of
valleys on Mars, and they look very different from each other. If you
look at Earth from a satellite you see a lot of valleys: some of them
made by rivers, some made by glaciers, some made by other processes,
and each type has a distinctive shape.

Mars is similar, in that valleys look very different from each
other, suggesting that many processes were at play to carve them."
The similarity between many Martian valleys and the subglacial channels
on Devon Island in the Canadian Arctic motivated the authors to conduct
their comparative study. "Devon Island is one of the best analogues
we have for Mars here on Earth -- it is a cold, dry, polar desert, and
the glaciation is largely cold-based," says co-author Gordon Osinski,
professor in Western University's department of earth sciences and
Institute for Earth and Space Exploration.

In total, the researchers analyzed more than 10,000 Martian valleys, using
a novel algorithm to infer their underlying erosion processes. "These
results are the first evidence for extensive subglacial erosion driven
by channelized meltwater drainage beneath an ancient ice sheet on Mars,"
says co-author Mark Jellinek, professor in UBC's department of earth,
ocean and atmospheric sciences. "The findings demonstrate that only
a fraction of valley networks match patterns typical of surface water
erosion, which is in marked contrast to the conventional view. Using the geomorphology of Mars' surface to rigorously reconstruct the character
and evolution of the planet in a statistically meaningful way is,
frankly, revolutionary." Grau Galofre's theory also helps explain
how the valleys would have formed 3.8 billion years ago on a planet
that is further away from the sun than Earth, during a time when the
sun was less intense. "Climate modelling predicts that Mars' ancient
climate was much cooler during the time of valley network formation,"
says Grau Galofre, currently a SESE Exploration Post-doctoral Fellow at
Arizona State University. "We tried to put everything together and bring
up a hypothesis that hadn't really been considered: that channels and
valleys networks can form under ice sheets, as part of the drainage system
that forms naturally under an ice sheet when there's water accumulated
at the base." These environments would also support better survival
conditions for possible ancient life on Mars. A sheet of ice would lend
more protection and stability of underlying water, as well as providing
shelter from solar radiation in the absence of a magnetic field --
something Mars once had, but which disappeared billions of years ago.

While Grau Galofre's research was focused on Mars, the analytical tools
she developed for this work can be applied to uncover more about the
early history of our own planet. Jellinek says he intends to use these
new algorithms to analyze and explore erosion features left over from
very early Earth history.

"Currently we can reconstruct rigorously the history of global
glaciation on Earth going back about a million to five million years,"
says Jellinek. "Anna's work will enable us to explore the advance and
retreat of ice sheets back to at least 35 million years ago -- to the beginnings of Antarctica, or earlier - - back in time well before the
age of our oldest ice cores. These are very elegant analytical tools."

========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by University_of_British_Columbia. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.


========================================================================== Journal Reference:
1. Grau Galofre, A., Jellinek, A.M. & Osinski, G.R. Valley formation on
early Mars by subglacial and fluvial erosion. Nat. Geosci., 2020
DOI: 10.1038/s41561-020-0618-x ==========================================================================

Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/08/200803120154.htm

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