Thursday, May 7, 2009

Lobate flows on Mars - evidence for water and ice


This announcement came out a couple months ago about the discovery of lobate flows on Mars likely being the result of water and ice transport, but I just stumbled across it.

It's another pretty compelling piece of geomorphic evidence that's quickly building a new understanding of Martian history.

The work was carried out by the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, using images from the THEMIS camera run by ASU.


[right, THEMIS VIS image V07798008, centered at -40.32° N, 132.5° E, showing a 16 km diameter crater with gullies and arcuate ridges on its north, pole-facing interior wall in the center of a larger (60 km diameter) crater with lobate flows on its north, interior wall. Image width is 17.4 km. Credit, PSI]