Remains of modern glacier close to Mars’ equator discovered
Scientists who spoke at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas observed that the substance in question is actually "a salt deposit" with "properties of a glacier," not ice.
The discovery of remnants of a contemporary glacier close to Mars’ equator raises the potential that ice may still be present in the region at shallow depths.
Future human exploration of Mars could be significantly impacted by the presence of ice, but scientists who spoke at the 54th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in Texas observed that the substance in question is actually “a salt deposit” with “properties of a glacier,” not ice.
There are numerous light-toned deposits (LTDs) in the area, one of which is the surface feature referred to as a “relict glacier”. Although LTDs typically include mostly light-colored sulphate salts, this deposit also exhibits many characteristics of a glacier, such as crevasse fields and moraine bands.
“What we’ve found is not ice, but a salt deposit with the detailed morphologic features of a glacier. What we think happened here is that salt formed on top of a glacier while preserving the shape of the ice below, down to details like crevasse fields and moraine bands,” said lead author Dr. Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute.
What we have discovered is a salt deposit with intricate glacier-like morphology, not ice. As main author Dr. Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute explained, “We suspect what happened here is that salt formed on top of a glacier while preserving the geometry of the ice underneath, down to details like crevasse fields and moraine bands.
“We’ve known about glacial activity on Mars at many locations, including near the equator in the more distant past. And we’ve known about recent glacial activity on Mars, but so far, only at higher latitudes. A relatively young relict glacier in this location tells us that Mars experienced surface ice in recent times, even near the equator, which is new,” said Lee.
The fine-scale features of the glacier, the sulphate salts deposit that they are associated with, and the volcanic materials that are overlying them are all very sparsely cratered by impacts and must be geologically young. They are probably Amazonian in age, the most recent geologic epoch that includes modern Mars.
