Topography and Stratigraphy of the Northern Martian Polar Layered Deposits Using Photoclinometry, Stereogrammetry, and MOLA Altimetry

Topographic information of sand dunes as extracted from shading effects using Landsat images

“…Ichoku et al (1996) took advantage of the spatial behavior of shading on Landsat-TM images with respect to channels and other topo-morphologic features in order to detect drainage channel networks. Planetary remote sensing used photoclinometry to determine the topography of the moon, Mars (mostly in the polar regions) and other planets since the 1960s (Bridges & Herkenhoff, 2002;Fenton & Herkenhoff, 2000;Howard et al, 1982;Wildey, 1975). The only attempt, however, to the best of our knowledge, to extract topographic information of the Earth's surface from optical satellite images based on their shading effects, was that of Lodwik and Paine (1985).…”

“…While photoclinometric studies of Mars are based on visually identifying flat areas in the image (e.g., in Fenton & Herkenhoff, 2000), we propose a method that is based on the regularity of dunes' landscapes. The proposed empirical calibration method is based on the availability of a DEM of the same dune type, rotated and stretched so it will have the same characteristics of the area under study (that is: dunes' orientation, height, spacing etc.).…”

Introduction to the 4th Mars Polar Science and Exploration Conference special issue: Five top questions in Mars polar science

“…As discussed below, the large-scale structure of the stratigraphy, wherein layers can be followed along and across one trough (Fenton and Herkenhoff, 2000;Malin and Edgett, 2001), between adjacent troughs , and even between widely separated troughs (Milkovich and Head, 2005;Fishbaugh and Hvidberg, 2006;Milkovich and Plaut, 2007), suggests that it is related to global climate changes. Episodic events such as impacts and melting would mainly influence the layers on a local scale.…”

“…The discovery of the distinctive, knobby "marker bed" in three different MOC images along one trough (Malin and Edgett, 2001) has encouraged attempts at correlation from one location to another in the NPLD of individual layers (Fenton and Herkenhoff, 2000;Kolb and Tanaka, 2001;Malin and Edgett, 2001;Fishbaugh and Hvidberg, 2006) and even of layer brightness profiles (Milkovich and Head, 2005;Milkovich and Plaut, 2007). Further analysis of NPLD layer sequences in HiRISE images (resolution up to ∼30 cm/pix) is preliminarily revealing the existence of more than one layer similar to the distinct "marker bed" (Fishbaugh et al, 2007a).…”

Evaluating the meaning of “layer” in the martian north polar layered deposits and the impact on the climate connection

“…Many previous authors have used apparent brightness combined with layer morphology to identify particular layers in MOC images and to correlate them from place to place (Howard et al, 1982;Fenton and Herkenhoff, 2000;Malin and Edgett, 2001;Kolb and Tanaka, 2001;Milkovich and Head, 2005;Fishbaugh and Hvidberg, 2006;Milkovich et al, 2008). Fishbaugh and Hvidberg (2006) have shown that the morphology of a particular layer in a MOC image can vary from one location to another.…”