Global documentation of gullies with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera and implications for their formation

Harrison, Tanya N.; Osinski, G. R.; Tornabene, L. L.; Jones, Eriita

doi:10.1016/j.icarus.2015.01.022

Cited by 132 publications

(105 citation statements)

References 95 publications

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“…1a, b; e.g. Malin & Edgett 2000;2006;Balme et al 2006;Dickson et al 2007;Dundas et al 2010Dundas et al , 2012Dundas et al , 2015Dundas et al , 2018Harrison et al 2015;Raack et al 2015;Conway et al 2015Conway et al , 2018; (2) 'dune gullies' ( Fig. 1c; e.g.…”

Section: Stability Of Liquid Water At the Surface Of Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1c; e.g. Diniega et al 2010;Hansen et al 2011Hansen et al , 2013Dundas et al 2012Dundas et al , 2015Harrison et al 2015); and (3) 'linear dune gullies' (Fig. 1d; e.g.…”

Section: Stability Of Liquid Water At the Surface Of Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Diniega et al 2010;Dundas et al 2012;Raack et al 2015;Pasquon et al this volume, in review); (3) volumetrically limited water sources (atmospheric humidity and/or perched topographic aquifers) cannot explain the large numbers of observed features (e.g. Balme et al 2006;Kneissl et al 2010;Harrison et al 2015) or the physical extent of the landforms observed (e.g. Dundas et al 2010Dundas et al , 2015.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Downslope sediment transport by boiling liquid water under Mars-like conditions: experiments and potential implications for Martian gullies

Herny

Conway

Raack

et al. 2018

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Gullies are widespread morphological features on Mars for which current changes have been observed. Liquid water has been one of the potential mechanisms to explain their formation and activity. However, under present-day Martian conditions, liquid water is unstable and should only be transiently present in small amounts at the surface. Yet little attention has been paid to the mechanisms by which unstable water transports sediment under low atmospheric pressure. Here we present the results of laboratory experiments studying the interaction between liquid water flowing over a sand bed under Mars-like atmospheric pressure (c. 9 mbar). The experiments were performed in a Mars Simulation Chamber (at the Open University, UK), in which we placed a test bed of fine sand at a 25°slope. We chose to investigate the influence of two parameters: the temperature of the water and the temperature of the sand. We performed 27 experiments with nine different combinations of water and sand temperatures ranging from 278 to 297 K. Under all experimental conditions, the water was boiling. We investigated and compared the types and timing of sediment transport events, and the shapes, characteristics and volumes of the resulting morphologies. In agreement with previous laboratory studies we found that more intense boiling increased the volume of sediment transported for a given volume of water. We found four main types of sediment transport: entrainment by overland flow; grain ejection; grain avalanches; and levitation of saturated sand pellets. Our results showed that increasing sand temperature was the main driving parameter in increasing the sand transport and in modifying the dominant sediment transport mechanism. The temperature of the water played a negligible or minor role, apart from the duration of sand ejection and avalanches, which lasted longer at low water temperature. At low sand temperature the majority of the sand was transported by overland flow of the liquid water. At higher sand temperatures the transport was dominated by processes triggered by the boiling behaviour of the water. At the highest temperatures, sediment transport was dominated by the formation of levitating pellets, dry avalanches and ejection of the sand grains. This resulted in a transport volume about nine times greater at a sand temperature of 297 K compared with 278 K. Our heat transfer scaling shows that the boiling behaviour will be enhanced under Martian low gravity, resulting in more efficient transport of sediment by levitating sand pellets even at temperatures close to the triple point. Our results showed that the boiling intensity played an important role in the physics of sediment transport by liquid water. This implied that the amount of water required to produce morphological changes at the surface of Mars could be lower than previously estimated by assuming stable liquid water. Boiling is a critical process to be considered when assessing gully formation and modification mechanisms mobilized by liquid water. Our work could ha...

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Section: Stability Of Liquid Water At the Surface Of Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…1c; e.g. Diniega et al 2010;Hansen et al 2011Hansen et al , 2013Dundas et al 2012Dundas et al , 2015Harrison et al 2015); and (3) 'linear dune gullies' (Fig. 1d; e.g.…”

Section: Stability Of Liquid Water At the Surface Of Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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confidence: 99%

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Downslope sediment transport by boiling liquid water under Mars-like conditions: experiments and potential implications for Martian gullies

Herny

Conway

Raack

et al. 2018

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“…Both the substrate type and slope angles used in our experiments are consistent with these data, hence our results would predict movement in this context if CO 2 is condensed in to the subsurface. For classic gullies, we must rely on orbital observations, with thermal inertia measurements suggesting that gullies reside in materials classed as unconsolidated 'sand-to pebble-sized grains' (Reiss et al 2009;Harrison et al 2014). Source areas for recent motions in classic gullies are usually diffuse, suggesting remobilization of a loose surface cover (Dundas et al 2017) and source areas of classic gullies range upwards from 20°( median 25°; Conway et al 2015).…”

Section: Application To Marsmentioning

confidence: 99%

CO ₂ sublimation in Martian gullies: laboratory experiments at varied slope angle and regolith grain sizes

Sylvest

Dixon

Conway

et al. 2018

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Martian gullies were initially hypothesized to be carved by liquid water, due to their resemblance to gullies on Earth. Recent observations have highlighted significant sediment transport events occurring in Martian gullies at times and places where CO 2 ice should be actively sublimating. Here we explore the role of CO 2 sublimation in mobilizing sediment through laboratory simulation. In our previous experimental work, we reported the first observations of sediment slope movement triggered by the sublimation of CO 2 frost. We used a Mars regolith simulant near the angle of repose. The current study extends our previous work by including two additional substrates, fine and coarse sand, and by testing slope angles down to 10°. We find that the Mars regolith simulant is active down to 17°, the fine sand is active only near the angle of repose and the coarse sand shows negligible movement. Using an analytical model, we show that under Martian gravity motion should be possible at even lower slope angles. We conclude that these mass-wasting processes could be involved in shaping Martian gullies at the present day and intriguingly the newly reported CO 2 -creep process could provide an alternative explanation for putative solifluction lobes on Mars.

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“…Gullies are present poleward of 27 of latitude in both hemispheres of Mars, between +3,000 and À5,000 m elevation above the Mars datum and in somewhat larger in numbers in the Southern than the Northern Hemisphere (Heldmann and Mellon 2004;Heldmann et al 2007;Dundas et al 2010;Harrison et al 2015) (Fig. 8).…”

Section: Distributionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Garmada

2015

Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

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Global documentation of gullies with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera and implications for their formation

Cited by 132 publications

References 95 publications

Downslope sediment transport by boiling liquid water under Mars-like conditions: experiments and potential implications for Martian gullies

Downslope sediment transport by boiling liquid water under Mars-like conditions: experiments and potential implications for Martian gullies

CO ₂ sublimation in Martian gullies: laboratory experiments at varied slope angle and regolith grain sizes

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Global documentation of gullies with the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter Context Camera and implications for their formation

Cited by 132 publications

References 95 publications

Downslope sediment transport by boiling liquid water under Mars-like conditions: experiments and potential implications for Martian gullies

Downslope sediment transport by boiling liquid water under Mars-like conditions: experiments and potential implications for Martian gullies

CO 2 sublimation in Martian gullies: laboratory experiments at varied slope angle and regolith grain sizes

Garmada

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CO ₂ sublimation in Martian gullies: laboratory experiments at varied slope angle and regolith grain sizes