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.

[nprev]

Uh...Not to put a damper on the ecstasy, Glenn, but we are talking about two completely different planetary bodies with equally different environments & apparently radically different means of acquiring/depositing water in their polar areas.

Don't think that you can reasonably infer an a=b relationship here.

[centsworth_II]

Uh...Not to put a damper on the ecstasy, Glenn...

Maybe he's just speaking semantics: If a few buckets full can be a lot of water on the Moon, then an Olympic pool volume of water on Mars can be an ocean.

Is Mars jealous? Are we making too much of the Moon's shiny new outfit?