The Glaciers Of Mars

Monday, September 29, 2014 - 17:50 in Earth & Climate

Planetary geologists have speculated for decades that glaciers might once have crept through Valles Marineris, the 2,000-mile-long chasm that constitutes the Grand Canyon of Mars. Using satellite images, astronomers have identified features they say might have been carved by past glaciers as they flowed through the canyons but those claims have remained highly controversial and contested. Now, a joint team from Bryn Mawr College and the Freie Universitaet Berlin has identified what could be the first mineralogical evidence of past glaciers within the Valles Marineris: a layer of mixed sulfate minerals halfway up the three-mile-high cliffs of Ius Chasma at the western end of the canyon system. read more

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