Mars Geological Enigmas

From the Late Noachian Epoch to the Present Day

1st Edition - May 23, 2021
Editors: Richard Soare, Susan Conway, Jean-Pierre Williams, Dorothy Oehler
Language: English
Paperback ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 2 0 2 4 5 - 6
eBook ISBN:
9 7 8 - 0 - 1 2 - 8 2 0 2 4 6 - 3

Mars Geological Enigmas: From the Late Noachian Epoch to the Present Day presents outstanding questions on the geology of Mars and divergent viewpoints based on varying interp… Read more

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Mars Geological Enigmas: From the Late Noachian Epoch to the Present Day presents outstanding questions on the geology of Mars and divergent viewpoints based on varying interpretations and analyses. The result is a robust and comprehensive discussion that provides opportunities for planetary scientists to develop their own opinions and ways forward. Each theme opens with an introduction that includes background on the topic and lays out questions to be addressed. Alternate perspectives are covered for each topic, including methods, observations, analyses, and in-depth discussion of the conclusions. Chapters within each theme reference each other to facilitate comparison and deeper understanding of divergent opinions.

Cover
Title page
Contents
Copyright
Contributors
Why Mars: a prologue
Introduction
Chapter 1: Resolving Martian enigmas, discovering new ones: the case of Curiosity and Gale crater
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Curiosity and Gale Crater
3. Resolving Mt. Sharp’s origin
4. Additional findings
5. Enigmas solved … and generated
Acknowledgment
Node I: Of frozen floods, unfathomable deeps; on ancient Mars, what fluid formed the enormous outflow channels and highland-margin contacts?
Chapter 2: Outflow channels on Mars
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Channels on Mars
3. Associations between outflow channels and other Martian landforms
4. Chaotic terrain
5. Fissures
6. Spectrometry—geochemical evidence of aqueous environments in outflow channel source terrains
7. Summary and conclusions
Chapter 3: Mars northern plains ocean
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Published tests of the shoreline hypothesis
3. Current observations
4. Discussion
5. Conclusions
Chapter 4: Dry megafloods on Mars: formation of the outflow channels by voluminous effusions of low viscosity lava
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Overview of past aqueous interpretations of the outflow channels
3. Problems with aqueous hypotheses
4. The volcanic interpretation of the Martian outflow channels
5. Discussion
6. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Node II: Can impact craters be used to derive reliable surface ages on Mars?
Chapter 5: Challenges in crater chronology on Mars as reflected in Jezero crater
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Basic concepts in crater chronology
3. Challenges in crater chronology in Jezero crater
4. Discussion and conclusions
Acknowledgments
Chapter 6: The role of secondary craters on Martian crater chronology
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Review of crater size-frequency distributions
3. Review of the debate over the effect of secondary craters
4. Constraining the flux of small primary craters
5. Production of secondaries by Martian primaries
6. Model of the global secondary SFD
7. Model of the spatial distribution of secondaries
8. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Node III: The Perplexing Story of Methane on Mars
Chapter 7: Methane on Mars: subsurface sourcing and conflicting atmospheric measurements
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Rationale for subsurface sourcing of methane
3. Subsurface methane origin—potential biotic and abiotic generation
4. Methane accumulation in the Martian subsurface
5. Methane release from the subsurface
6. Predicting locations of subsurface methane accumulation
7. Path forward
8. Remaining questions and uncertainties
9. Summary and conclusions
Acknowledgments
Chapter 8: A review of the meteor shower hypothesis for methane on Mars
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Review of literature
3. Methods
4. Observations
5. Interpretations
6. Uncertainties/remaining questions
7. Conclusions
8. Final thoughts: the significance of methane on Mars
Acknowledgments
Node IV: Does water flow on Martian slopes?
Chapter 9: The role of liquid water in recent surface processes on Mars
Abstract
1. Present-day and recent surface conditions on Mars
2. Present-day reservoirs of water on Mars
3. What is the evidence for recent liquid water on Mars?
4. Synthesis and outlook
5. Conclusions
Acknowledgments
Chapter 10: Dry formation of recent Martian slope features
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Challenges for liquid water
3. Observed slope features
4. Discussion and conclusions
Acknowledgments
Node V: Earth Analogs for Mars - a Plethora of Choice!
Chapter 11: The McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica: a geological, environmental, and ecological analog to the Martian surface and near surface
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Background: geologic and environmental context of Mars and Antarctica
3. Observations: Antarctic insights into Martian enigmas
4. Discussion
5. Summary and conclusions
Acknowledgments
Chapter 12: The Atacama Desert: a window into late Mars surface habitability?
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Environmental conditions
3. Ecological successions along the latitudinal rainfall gradient
4. Expression and preservation of signatures of life
5. Implications for Mars habitability and the search for evidence of life
6. Concluding remarks and path forward
Acknowledgments
Chapter 13: Life analog sites for Mars from early Earth: diverse habitats from the Pilbara Craton and Mount Bruce Supergroup, Western Australia
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Geological setting: the Pilbara Craton and Mount Bruce Supergroup
3. Investigated geological units
4. Inhabited environments—from sea to land
5. Discussion
Acknowledgments
Node VI: The freeze-thaw cycling of water at/near the Martian surface: present, past, and possible?
Chapter 14: Pingo-like mounds and possible polyphase periglaciation/glaciation at/adjacent to the Moreux impact crater
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Methods
3. Observations
4. Glacial terrain and open-system pingos
5. Periglacial terrain and closed-system pingos
6. Two disparate mound-formation scenarios
7. Basement age-estimates and the relative geochronology of the post-basement landscapes
8. Discussion and conclusion
Acknowledgments
Chapter 15: Thermokarst-like depressions on Mars: age constraints on ice degradation in Utopia Planitia
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Thermokarst-like morphologies on Mars
3. Age dating mantling units and thermokarst-like depressions in Utopia Planitia
4. Modern CO2 sublimation pits as an analog for mid-latitude thermokarst-like depressions?
5. Excess ice versus mantle ice?
6. Conclusions and open questions
Acknowledgments
Node VII: Hemispheres together: toward understanding the crustal dichotomy on Mars
Chapter 16: Forging the Mars crustal dichotomy: the giant impact hypothesis
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Giant impact excavation of the northern lowlands
3. Alternative impact models
4. Timing and likelihood of a dichotomy-forming impact
5. Additional consequences of an early giant impact
6. Summary
Acknowledgments
Chapter 17: Endogenic origin of the Martian hemispheric dichotomy
Abstract
1. Introduction
2. Historical and geologic context
3. Endogenic formation methods
4. Hybrid formation mechanism
5. Orientation of the dichotomy
6. Summary
Acknowledgments
Index

Richard Soare

Richard Soare is a physical geographer specializing in periglacial (cold-climate, non-glacial landscapes). Through the last twenty years he has spent considerable time in the Canadian arctic (physically) and off-planet (intellectually), attempting to identify landscapes on Mars present or past possibly molded by the freeze-thaw cycling of water. His work spans the red planet geographically, ranging from the plains of Utopia Planitia in the northern hemisphere and the Moreux impact-crater at the Mars dichotomy through to the Argyre impact-crater in the southern hemisphere. Recently, he lead-edited “Mars Geological Enigmas: from the late Noachian Epoch to the present day” and a special issue of Icarus: “Current and Recent Landscape Evolution on Mars.”

Affiliations and expertise

Professor, Department of Geography, Dawson College, Montreal, Quebec, Canada

Susan Conway

Susan Conway is a CNRS research scientist in Nantes, France, having graduated with a PhD in planetary science from the Open University (United Kingdom) in 2010. She is chair of the International Association for Geomorphologists (IAG) Planetary Geomorphology Working Group, and has run the Planetary Geomorphology session at the European Geoscience Union since 2011. She is lead editor for a collection of papers on Martian gullies and their Earth analogues, based on the workshop she organized at the Geological Society of London in June 2016 and is co-editor on a collection of papers entitled "Frontiers in Geomorphometry". She is a team member on the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) instrument on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and Guest Investigator on the ESA Trace Gas Orbiter mission to Mars, specifically focused on the CaSSIS camera and NOMAD/ACS spectrometer instruments. She is on the author list of 35 peer-reviewed papers concerning the geomorphology of Earth, Mars, Mercury, the Moon and the asteroid Vesta. Her work is concentrated around glacial, periglacial and fluvial landforms on Mars, encompassing field, remote sensing and laboratory simulation data, with a specialty in analysis of 3D terrain data.

Affiliations and expertise

CNRS Researcher, CNRS UMR 6112 Laboratoire de Planetologie et Geodynamique, Universite de Nantes, France

Jean-Pierre Williams

Jean-Pierre Williams is a planetary scientist at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA). He received his PhD in Geophysics and Space Physics from UCLA and was a research scientist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) for five years before accepting a position at UCLA. His work focuses on the geology and physics of the inner planets, and he has authored and co-authored over sixty peer-reviewed publications on Mars, Mercury, and the Earth’s Moon. He is currently the Deputy Principal Investigator of the Diviner Lunar Radiometer Experiment on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, a member of the ShadowCam instrument team on the Korean Pathfinder Lunar Orbiter (Danuri) mission, which will image the permanently shadowed regions near the poles of the Moon, and a Co-Investigator of the Lunar Vulkan Imaging and Spectroscopy Explorer (Lunar-VISE), a lander and rover that will explore the summit of a volcanic dome on the Moon.

Affiliations and expertise

Research Scientist, Planetary Physics and Geology, Department of Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Los Angeles, CA, United States

Dorothy Oehler

Dorothy Oehler is a planetary geologist and Precambrian paleontologist seeking ways to identify biosignatures of potential, past life on Mars and predict optimal locations in which to search for biosignatures. She obtained her Ph.D. from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), then spent several years in petroleum research focusing on methane in the subsurface of the Earth. She now applies that background to investigations of methane on Mars. Dr. Oehler spent the years from 2003 to 2016 at Johnson Space Center and was a member of the 1st Mars Science Laboratory (Curiosity Rover) Science Team. Currently, she continues her work on methane on Mars, earliest life on Earth, and potential biosignatures on Mars. In 2012, Dr. Oehler was named Distinguished Alumna from the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at UCLA.

Affiliations and expertise

Senior Scientist, Planetary Science Institute, Tucson, Arizona, USA

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Mars Geological Enigmas

From the Late Noachian Epoch to the Present Day

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Richard Soare

Susan Conway

Jean-Pierre Williams

Dorothy Oehler

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