[X] My Assistant

[Guest_AlexBlackwell_*]

Water May Not Have Formed Mars' Recent Gullies
By Lori Stiles
University of Arizona News Services
March 16, 2006

[Guest_BruceMoomaw_*]

Against that, however, we have the problem pointed out (not for the first time) in http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1610.pdf : "The discovery that 10-16% of gullies occur on isolated knobs or hills is difficult to reconcile with a regional groundwater model of gully formation as it is unlikely that a sufficiently large aquifer to produce gullies (with lengths sometimes > 5km) could form within these isolated topographies. Instead, the obvious dependence of gully distribution and orientation with latitude suggest that insolation and climate play a controlling role in gully formation and that an atmospheric source for the water [e.g. 4] is more likely."

Indeed, one should keep in mind Allen Treiman's belief that NO unified theory explains all the gullies very well -- there are inconsistencies in every single theory proposed so far: http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2006/pdf/1304.pdf . See also his abstract from last year's LPSC attacking aquifer formation theories for them (in which he managed to utilize Lemony Snicket for the title): http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1713.pdf

[ljk4-1]

Science/Astronomy:

* Researchers Rain On Mars' Water Gullies Parade

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060321_mars_water.html

Martian gullies that some scientists believe were recently carved by liquid
water might instead be the result of landslides triggered by wind and meteor
impacts, scientists say.