Washington [US], Oct. 3 (ANI): Massive flooding from crater lakes had a big role in shaping the Martian surface, carving deep fissures and displacing large amounts of sediment, according to a recent study, led by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin.
The results of the study were published in the journal Nature.
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The study found that flooding, which may only last for weeks, eroded more than enough sediment to completely fill Lake Superior and Lake Ontario.
“If we think about how sediment was transported across the landscape on ancient Mars, flooding from lakes penetrating is a very important process globally,” said lead author Tim Judge, professor at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences.
“And these are rather surprising findings because they’ve been seen as a one-time anomaly for so long,” Goudge added.
Crater lakes were common on Mars billions of years ago when the surface of the Red Planet had liquid water. Some craters can contain small seawater. But when the water became too much to hold in, it broke through the rim of the crater, causing a great flood that carved the river valleys behind it. A 2019 study led by Goudge found that these events happened quickly.
Remote-sensing images taken by satellites orbiting Mars have allowed scientists to study the remains of a penetrating Martian crater lake. However, crater lakes and river valleys have largely been studied individually, Goudge said. This is the first study to look at how the Red Planet’s 262 infiltrating lakes make up the entire surface of Mars.
The research required a review of a catalog of pre-existing river valleys on Mars and a classification of the valleys into two categories: valleys that began at the crater rim, indicating that they formed during floods that penetrated lakes, and valleys that formed elsewhere on the surface. landscape, which suggests a more gradual formation with the passage of time.
From there, scientists compared the depth, length, and size of different types of valleys and found that the river valleys formed from crater lake holes far outweighed their weight, eroding about a quarter of the volume of the Red Planet’s river valleys despite only forming 3 . percent of the total valley length.
“This difference is due to the fact that the outlet canyon is much deeper than the other valleys,” said study co-author Alexander Morgan, a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute.
At 559 ft (170.5 m), the average depth of the river valley that penetrates is more than twice that of other river valleys that form gradually over time, which averages about 254 feet (77.5 m).
In addition, although faults appear at geological times, they may have lasting effects on the surrounding landscape. The study suggests that the gullies scour the canyons so deep that they may have influenced the formation of other nearby river valleys. The authors say this is a possible alternative explanation for the unique Martian river valley topography usually associated with climate.
Studies show that river valleys that intersect lakes played an important role in shaping the Martian surface, but Goudge says it’s also a lesson in forecasting. The geology of the soil has removed most of the craters and made river erosion a slow and in most cases stable process. But that doesn’t mean it will work that way in the other world.
“When you fill (the crater) with water, there is a lot of energy stored there to be released. It makes sense that Mars, in this case, is more likely to be shaped by disasters than Earth,” concludes Goudge. (Ani)
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