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Groundwater production from geothermal heating on early Mars and implication for early martian habitability
In explaining extensive evidence for past liquid water, the debate on whether Mars was primarily warm and wet or cold and arid 4 billion years (Ga) ago has continued for decades. The Sun’s luminosity was ~30% lower 4 Ga ago; thus, most martian climate models struggle to elevate the mean surface temp...
Autores principales: | , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2020
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7710363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33268366 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb1669 |
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author | Ojha, Lujendra Buffo, Jacob Karunatillake, Suniti Siegler, Matthew |
author_facet | Ojha, Lujendra Buffo, Jacob Karunatillake, Suniti Siegler, Matthew |
author_sort | Ojha, Lujendra |
collection | PubMed |
description | In explaining extensive evidence for past liquid water, the debate on whether Mars was primarily warm and wet or cold and arid 4 billion years (Ga) ago has continued for decades. The Sun’s luminosity was ~30% lower 4 Ga ago; thus, most martian climate models struggle to elevate the mean surface temperature past the melting point of water. Basal melting of ice sheets may help resolve that paradox. We modeled the thermophysical evolution of ice and estimate the geothermal heat flux required to produce meltwater on a cold, arid Mars. We then analyzed geophysical and geochemical data, showing that basal melting would have been feasible on Mars 4 Ga ago. If Mars were warm and wet 4 Ga ago, then the geothermal flux would have even sustained hydrothermal activity. Regardless of the actual nature of the ancient martian climate, the subsurface would have been the most habitable region on Mars. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7710363 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2020 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-77103632020-12-08 Groundwater production from geothermal heating on early Mars and implication for early martian habitability Ojha, Lujendra Buffo, Jacob Karunatillake, Suniti Siegler, Matthew Sci Adv Research Articles In explaining extensive evidence for past liquid water, the debate on whether Mars was primarily warm and wet or cold and arid 4 billion years (Ga) ago has continued for decades. The Sun’s luminosity was ~30% lower 4 Ga ago; thus, most martian climate models struggle to elevate the mean surface temperature past the melting point of water. Basal melting of ice sheets may help resolve that paradox. We modeled the thermophysical evolution of ice and estimate the geothermal heat flux required to produce meltwater on a cold, arid Mars. We then analyzed geophysical and geochemical data, showing that basal melting would have been feasible on Mars 4 Ga ago. If Mars were warm and wet 4 Ga ago, then the geothermal flux would have even sustained hydrothermal activity. Regardless of the actual nature of the ancient martian climate, the subsurface would have been the most habitable region on Mars. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2020-12-02 /pmc/articles/PMC7710363/ /pubmed/33268366 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb1669 Text en Copyright © 2020 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). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (https://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 Ojha, Lujendra Buffo, Jacob Karunatillake, Suniti Siegler, Matthew Groundwater production from geothermal heating on early Mars and implication for early martian habitability |
title | Groundwater production from geothermal heating on early Mars and implication for early martian habitability |
title_full | Groundwater production from geothermal heating on early Mars and implication for early martian habitability |
title_fullStr | Groundwater production from geothermal heating on early Mars and implication for early martian habitability |
title_full_unstemmed | Groundwater production from geothermal heating on early Mars and implication for early martian habitability |
title_short | Groundwater production from geothermal heating on early Mars and implication for early martian habitability |
title_sort | groundwater production from geothermal heating on early mars and implication for early martian habitability |
topic | Research Articles |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7710363/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33268366 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb1669 |
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