Abstract ▼ AI-Helper

Results from the most recent decade of Mars' missions to Mars highlight a liquid water and water-ice sculpted landscape. Evidence includes layered sedimentary sequences with weathered outcrops, debris flows, fluvial valleys, alluvial fans, deltas, glacial and periglacial landscapes, and geochemical/...

Results from the most recent decade of Mars' missions to Mars highlight a liquid water and water-ice sculpted landscape. Evidence includes layered sedimentary sequences with weathered outcrops, debris flows, fluvial valleys, alluvial fans, deltas, glacial and periglacial landscapes, and geochemical/mineralogical signatures of aqueous activity, including the formation of sulfates and clays, and the leaching and deposition of elements such as potassium, thorium,and iron. Such evidence indicates weathered zones and possible paleosols in stratigraphic sequences, transport of water and rock materials to sedimentary basins, and the possible formation of extensive transient lakes and possibly transient oceans on Mars. This new evidence is consistent with Viking-era geologic investigations that reported magmatic-driven flooding, ponding to form large water bodies in the northern plains, and transient (tens of thousand of years) hydrological cycles. It may even indicate aqueous activity at present. Both endogenic (magmatic driven) and exogenic (both impact cratering and changes in orbital parameters) have influenced paleohydrologic and environmental change on Mars. Abundance of water and dynamic activity would be decisively important for the possibility of past and present life on Mars.