Brown: Hot Rocks Led to Water-Carved Valleys on Mars

Find out the latest thinking about our universe.
Post Reply
User avatar
bystander
Apathetic Retiree
Posts: 21571
Joined: Mon Aug 28, 2006 2:06 pm
Location: Oklahoma

Brown: Hot Rocks Led to Water-Carved Valleys on Mars

Post by bystander » Tue Jun 13, 2017 8:30 pm

Hot Rocks Led to Relatively Recent Water-Carved Valleys on Mars
Brown University | 2017 Jun 13

New research shows that water from melted snow and ice likely carved valley networks around Lyot crater on Mars.
[img3="Lyot Crater, rendered here with elevations exaggerated, is home to relatively recent water-carved valleys (white streaks). New research suggests the water came from melting snow and ice present at the time of the crater-forming impact.
Credit: David Weiss/NASA/Brown University
"]https://i2.wp.com/scienceblog.com/wp-co ... Mars-.jpeg[/img3][hr][/hr]
Present-day Mars is a frozen desert, colder and more arid than Antarctica, and scientists are fairly sure it’s been that way for at least the last 3 billion years. That makes a vast network of water-carved valleys on the flanks of an impact crater called Lyot — which formed somewhere between 1.5 billion and 3 billion years ago — something of a Martian mystery. It’s not clear where the water came from.

Now, a team of researchers from Brown University has offered what they see as the most plausible explanation for how the Lyot valley networks formed. They conclude that at the time of the Lyot impact, the region was likely covered by a thick layer of ice. The giant impact that formed the 225-kilometer crater blasted tons of blazing hot rock onto that ice layer, melting enough of it to carve the shallow valleys.

“Based on the likely location of ice deposits during this period of Mars’ history, and the amount of meltwater that could have been produced by Lyot ejecta landing on an ice sheet, we think this is the most plausible scenario for the formation of these valleys” said David Weiss ...

Extensive Amazonian-aged fluvial channels on Mars:
Evaluating the role of Lyot crater in their formation
- David K. Weiss et al
Know the quiet place within your heart and touch the rainbow of possibility; be
alive to the gentle breeze of communication, and please stop being such a jerk.
— Garrison Keillor

Post Reply