Kite, E.S. and Mayer, D.P. and Wilson, S.A. and Davis, Joel and Lucas, A.S. and Stucky de Quay, G. (2019) Persistence of intense, climate-driven runoff late in Mars history. Science Advances 5 (3), ISSN 2375-2548.
|
Text
49985.pdf - Published Version of Record Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (894kB) | Preview |
Abstract
Mars is dry today, but numerous precipitation-fed paleo-rivers are found across the planet’s surface. These rivers’ existence is a challenge to models of planetary climate evolution. We report results indicating that, for a given catchment area, rivers on Mars were wider than rivers on Earth today. We use the scale (width and wavelength) of Mars paleo-rivers as a proxy for past runoff production. Using multiple methods, we infer that intense runoff production of >(3–20) kg/m2 per day persisted until <3 billion years (Ga) ago and probably <1 Ga ago, and was globally distributed. Therefore, the intense runoff production inferred from the results of the Mars Science Laboratory rover was not a short-lived or local anomaly. Rather, precipitation-fed runoff production was globally distributed, was intense, and persisted intermittently over >1 Ga. Our improved history of Mars’ river runoff places new constraints on the unknown mechanism that caused wet climates on Mars.
Metadata
| Item Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| School: | Birkbeck Faculties and Schools > Faculty of Science > School of Natural Sciences |
| Depositing User: | Joel Davis |
| Date Deposited: | 28 Nov 2022 17:05 |
| Last Modified: | 02 Aug 2023 18:19 |
| URI: | https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/49985 |
Statistics
Additional statistics are available via IRStats2.
Archive Staff Only (login required)
