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Posted by: HSchirmer Dec 5 2022, 07:10 PM

UPDATES ON THE VIKING 1 LANDING SITE-

Abstract
In 1976, NASA's Viking 1 Lander (V1L) was the first spacecraft to operate successfully on the Martian surface.
The V1L landed near the terminus of an enormous catastrophic flood channel, Maja Valles.
However, instead of the expected megaflood record, its cameras imaged a boulder-strewn surface of elusive origin. We identified a 110-km-diameter impact crater (Pohl) ~ 900 km northeast of the landing site, stratigraphically positioned
-A above catastrophic flood-eroded surfaces formed ~ 3.4 Ga during a period of northern plains oceanic inundation and
-B below the younger of two previously hypothesized megatsunami deposits.
These stratigraphic relationships suggest that a marine impact likely formed the crater.
Our simulated impact-generated megatsunami run-ups closely match the mapped older megatsunami deposit's margins and predict fronts reaching the V1L site.
The site's location along a highland-facing lobe aligned to erosional grooves supports a megatsunami origin.
Our mapping also shows that Pohl's knobby rim regionally represents a broader history of megatsunami modification involving circum-oceanic glaciation and sedimentary extrusions extending beyond the recorded megatsunami emplacement in Chryse Planitia.
Our findings allow that rocks and soil salts at the landing site are of marine origin, inviting the scientific reconsideration of information gathered from the first in-situ measurements on Mars.

Evidence of an oceanic impact and megatsunami sedimentation in Chryse Planitia, Mars
J. Alexis P. Rodriguez, Darrel K. Robertson, Jeffrey S. Kargel, Victor R. Baker, Daniel C. Berman, Jacob Cohen, Francois Costard, Goro Komatsu, Anthony Lopez, Hideaki Miyamoto & Mario Zarroca

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-18082-2

Posted by: Bill Harris Dec 12 2022, 11:08 PM

Interesting. I'd never considered Tsunami-motions in that area, only the outfloww from the continental area.
I'll try to grab the entire paper later.

--Bill

Posted by: mcaplinger Dec 13 2022, 12:36 AM

I expect that this paper will meet with a fairly skeptical response from most of the community.

Whatever happened to the "White Mars" idea that there was never any liquid water on Mars? This is the pendulum swung to the other side

Posted by: serpens Dec 16 2022, 10:06 AM

The key word in that summation of Nick Hoffman's White Mars hypothesis is 'never'. This is deterministic and the hypothesis can only be true or false. The four Rovers have confirmed beyond doubt that both surface and subsurface water existed on Mars and for extended periods, so the hypothesis is false. This does not mean that at times the CO2 mechanism that underpinned Nick's explanation for physical features could not occur. I don't think the pendulum has swung all that far to the other side. We are confident that there was liquid water on Mars but that this was time limited. The existence of a huge body of water, the Oceanus Borealis is contested although to be fair indications supporting the hypothesis are gradually increasing.

Posted by: Bill Harris Dec 17 2022, 12:27 AM

Mars may have had liquid surface water when atmospheric pressure and temperature permitted it. I tend to think of this as Ephemeral.water because of it's temporary nature. For the most part, I think of Martian water as subsurface water or Phreatic water. There is also that area above the saturated zone of the water table in the unsaturated pore water or vadose zone which may be under reduced atmospheric pressure, which can be called Vadose water. At depth the pressure amd temperature may be enough to permit normsl liquid water.

--Bill