Earthlike Mars? Options

[glennwsmith]

All, I know this isn't the right place for this post, but I've looked around and can't find an appropriate, current UMSF forum (Doug, perhaps you could give me some guidance on establishing such) -- so here goes: I think a [the] new paradigm for Martian geology is rapidly coalescing, namely, that Mars is very much like the Earth in terms of the preponderance of water -- except that it is all frozen, and covered under a thin layer of dust/regolith! See, for example, this article:

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/41995902.html

Hence the "seepages" found in crater walls; hence the evidence of catastophic flooding -- the result of volcanism melting huge pockets of ice. And I am going to add my own wrinkle (probably not original): that the differentiation of Mars into a rougher southern hemisphere and smoother northern hemsphere represents something like Earth's Pangea stage, ie, the northern hemisphere is a vast frozen sea covered with a thin layer of ice.

[imipak]

A picture of Mars with somewhat ubiquitous sub-surface ice seems to be emerging (for some value of "ubiquitous" yet to be firmly established, but certainly less than 1), and this is relatively new. I haven't seen any informed speculation about, or estimates at upper and lower bounds for, the thickness or volume of these layers (and would welcome some pointers, if anyone has any?) I like your "eureka moment" image, though, I just think it'll turn out to be a bit less dramatic than ocean-basin scale volumes.