Ancient Ocean that covered 1/3 of Mars with Water, A new study conducted by University of Colorado at Boulder scientists. |
Ancient Ocean that covered 1/3 of Mars with Water, A new study conducted by University of Colorado at Boulder scientists. |
Guest_Bobby_* |
Jun 15 2010, 12:33 AM
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Guests |
I found this article about Mars being covered with Water and found it interesting.
June 13, 2010 Here is the article: http://www.colorado.edu/news/r/f9b2e812247...b0735f7098.html |
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Oct 19 2010, 10:04 PM
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Junior Member Group: Members Posts: 59 Joined: 12-November 09 Member No.: 5039 |
Indeed, we have two near certainties which contradict each other:
(1) Mars *had to* have a lot of water early on and thus, had to have fairly extensive ocean. (2) But we don't see much of sedimentary rocks. One crazy-ish idea from me: what if Mars indeed had a lot of water, but it always was mostly solid? Even here on Earth, with beefy atmosphere (-> greenhouse effect) and higher insolation, we had pretty bad glaciations. At Mars distance, it should have been colder. What if Mars "ocean" was mostly frozen solid, like continuous ice age with only short periods of catastrophic melting and floods, when polar tilt, greenhouse effect and volcanic heat happen to work together? After billions of years of slow water loss, especially from surface closer to equator, this will give us today outwardly "dirty", but inside pretty "icy" Mars (lots of ancient river/flood valleys, glaciers, lots of permafrost at latitudes +/-40 and up to poles), yet not much of sediments. Sedimentation doesn't happen in solid water, right? Re "icy" Mars: http://www.uahirise.org/PSP_008809_2215 this glacier(-like?) feature is at 41.3 N.lat. Why is it _white_ in RGB? Was is covered with water frost when this image was taken? |
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