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Branching geometry of valley networks on Mars and Earth and its implications for early Martian climate

Mars’ surface bears the imprint of valley networks formed billions of years ago. Whether these networks were formed by groundwater sapping, ice melt, or fluvial runoff has been debated for decades. These different scenarios have profoundly different implications for Mars’ climatic history and thus f...

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Autores principales: Seybold, Hansjoerg J., Kite, Edwin, Kirchner, James W.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: American Association for the Advancement of Science 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6021146/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29963627
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar6692
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author Seybold, Hansjoerg J.
Kite, Edwin
Kirchner, James W.
author_facet Seybold, Hansjoerg J.
Kite, Edwin
Kirchner, James W.
author_sort Seybold, Hansjoerg J.
collection PubMed
description Mars’ surface bears the imprint of valley networks formed billions of years ago. Whether these networks were formed by groundwater sapping, ice melt, or fluvial runoff has been debated for decades. These different scenarios have profoundly different implications for Mars’ climatic history and thus for its habitability in the distant past. Recent studies on Earth revealed that valley networks in arid landscapes with more surface runoff branch at narrower angles, while in humid environments with more groundwater flow, branching angles are much wider. We find that valley networks on Mars generally tend to branch at narrow angles similar to those found in arid landscapes on Earth. This result supports the inference that Mars once had an active hydrologic cycle and that Mars’ valley networks were formed primarily by overland flow erosion, with groundwater seepage playing only a minor role.
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spelling pubmed-60211462018-06-29 Branching geometry of valley networks on Mars and Earth and its implications for early Martian climate Seybold, Hansjoerg J. Kite, Edwin Kirchner, James W. Sci Adv Research Articles Mars’ surface bears the imprint of valley networks formed billions of years ago. Whether these networks were formed by groundwater sapping, ice melt, or fluvial runoff has been debated for decades. These different scenarios have profoundly different implications for Mars’ climatic history and thus for its habitability in the distant past. Recent studies on Earth revealed that valley networks in arid landscapes with more surface runoff branch at narrower angles, while in humid environments with more groundwater flow, branching angles are much wider. We find that valley networks on Mars generally tend to branch at narrow angles similar to those found in arid landscapes on Earth. This result supports the inference that Mars once had an active hydrologic cycle and that Mars’ valley networks were formed primarily by overland flow erosion, with groundwater seepage playing only a minor role. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2018-06-27 /pmc/articles/PMC6021146/ /pubmed/29963627 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar6692 Text en Copyright © 2018 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Articles
Seybold, Hansjoerg J.
Kite, Edwin
Kirchner, James W.
Branching geometry of valley networks on Mars and Earth and its implications for early Martian climate
title Branching geometry of valley networks on Mars and Earth and its implications for early Martian climate
title_full Branching geometry of valley networks on Mars and Earth and its implications for early Martian climate
title_fullStr Branching geometry of valley networks on Mars and Earth and its implications for early Martian climate
title_full_unstemmed Branching geometry of valley networks on Mars and Earth and its implications for early Martian climate
title_short Branching geometry of valley networks on Mars and Earth and its implications for early Martian climate
title_sort branching geometry of valley networks on mars and earth and its implications for early martian climate
topic Research Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6021146/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29963627
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aar6692
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