Mars Lakes And Rivers Triggered Catastrophic Floods Altering The Planet’s Surface Forever
It’s no more a secret that approximately 4.2 billion years ago the Red Planet nothing like the arid, cold, and dead planet that we observe and study today. Back then, Mars lakes and rivers were present on our neighbor. However, on specific occasions, they filled so fast that they triggered catastrophic floods that altered the Red Planet’s surface forever.
Well, about 3.7 billion years ago, solar winds stripped Mars’ atmosphere, leaving the Red Planet’s surface arid and cold. As a consequence of that event, all the water that was once present on Mars is now gathered at the planet’s polar ice caps. According to a new study carried out by the scientists at the University of Texas at Austin, studied how the Mars lakes and rivers filled in the Red Planet’s early history.
The researchers used the images captured by NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) and observed that craters on Mars, about whose canyons scientists already knew that they were the result of water outflows, did not form in eons, as previously thought, but in a matter of weeks due to catastrophic floods.
Mars Lakes And Rivers Triggered Catastrophic Floods Altering The Planet’s Surface Forever
“The landscape on Earth doesn’t preserve large lakes for a very long time. But on Mars, these canyons have been there for 3.7 billion years, a very long time, and it gives us insight into what the deep time surface water was like on Mars,’ said Caleb Fassett of NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
“These breached lakes are fairly common, and some of them are quite large, some as large as the Caspian Sea. So we think this style of catastrophic overflow flooding and rapid incision of outlet canyons was probably quite important on early Mars’ surface,” also said Tim Goudge from the UTA’s Jackson School of Geosciences for UT News.
In conclusion, this new study revealed that Mars lake and rivers and the catastrophic floods they triggered about 3.7 billion years ago played a critical role in shaping up the Red Planet’s landscape but altering its surface forever.
Vadim is a passionate writer on various topics but especially on stuff related to health, technology, and science. Therefore, for Great Lakes Ledger, Vadim will cover health and Sci&Tech news.
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