Mapping and Interpreting the Formation of Martian Depositional Rivers
Board Location: #110
Discipline: Ecology Environmental and Earth Sciences
Subcategory: Geosciences and Earth Sciences
Session: 2
Emiliano Gonzalez - California State Polytechnic University, Pomona.
Co-Author(s): Dr. Michael Lamb, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena; Dr. Abdallah Zaki, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
The Martian surface was once dramatically different from today, featuring extensive lakes, rivers, and even clues of an ancient ocean. Although erosional valley networks have been identified since the early history of Mars exploration, a planet-wide discovery of Martian depositional rivers has recently been mapped, supporting the presence of ancient sedimentary basins. These depositional rivers appear as sinuous ridges standing as topographic highs due to long-lived aeolian erosion. Although previous studies have determined the major forces responsible for the formation of Martian depositional rivers, no studies have systematically interpreted or distinguished the various processes involved in their formation. We have developed a method to interpret these depositional rivers’ origin as fluvial or volcanic by comparing their morphological characteristics. Features such as their pattern, sedimentary structure, texture, and color were used to form a hypothesis behind a system’s formation. The mapping and interpreting of the formation of Martian ridges included improving and identifying new ridge site locations from Dickson et al., 2020. The mapping was conducted using orbiter-based imagery data MRO Context Camera (CTX; ~6 m/pixel) and High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE; ~0.3/pixel) in ArcGIS Pro and Google Earth Pro. Approximately 2284 kilometers of Martian Depositional sites have been mapped and a total of 23 sites were interpreted to distinguish their origin of formation which included 12 fluvially formed, 5 volcanically formed, 3 volcanically capped, and 3 undetermined. This analysis contributes to our understanding of the ancient Martian hydrological cycle, and processes that shaped the planet’s surface.
Funder Acknowledgement(s): California State Polytechnic University, Pomona; Caltech WAVE SFP Office; Southern California Edison
Faculty Advisor: Abdallah Zaki, azaki@caltech.edu
Role: The initial phase of the project included conducting a high-quality remapping of the original sites from "The global distribution of depositional rivers on early Mars (2020)" by Dr. Jay Dickson which identified and partially mapped the locations of 68 globally distributed Martian Depositional rivers across the surface of the planet. The second phase of the project included a systematic interpretation to decipher the processes behind the formation of the Martian Depositional rivers. I developed a method to interpret these depositional rivers’ origin as fluvial or volcanic by describing and comparing their morphological features to Earth-based analogs. All the work was conducted by me besides the original paper mentioned earlier in this paragraph.