Great Floods Ever Happened On Mars, Shaped The Topography Of The Red Planet

JAKARTA - A new NASA-funded study has revealed that cataclysmic flood bursts that displaced large amounts of surface material played a key role in shaping the topography of Mars. This formation is mainly in the deep canyons, craters, and valleys on the surface of the Red Planet.

Just like Earth, flowing water creates some of the characteristic surface patterns on neighboring planets caused by surface water overflows, with easy-to-see results if the event is catastrophic. Studies conducted over the last few decades have actually predicted scenarios such as a 'big flood' occurring on Martian soil due to various triggers, one of which is an asteroid impact.

In fact, astrobiologists have raised the question of whether Mars' water-rich terrain was ever suitable for life, drawing parallels to the concept of a similar origin of life on Earth. Mars may appear dry and arid in photos, but long swaths of land that span hundreds of kilometers and are usually one kilometer wide are clearly visible and are thought to have been created by a sudden, large flood.

These soil structures are called outflow channels, and their sheer size is an indicator of the scale and strength of the flooding the planet is witnessing. But so far, the scientific community believes that the planet's valleys and canyons are largely the results of erosion by long-lived rivers.

Now, a new study published in the journal Nature claims that large, brief floods are changing the planet's surface more dramatically than previously thought. The paper states that flooding that penetrated the lake eroded as much as 24 percent of the volume of the valley incised on early Mars and formed most of the Martian valley system.

In fact, this superflood transported enough sediment to fill Lake Superior and Lake Ontario — two of the largest lakes on Earth — in a matter of a few weeks. Scientists now plan to model the lake's breaching flood to studying the impact this violent episode had on shaping what Mars looks like today.

This is the first study to collectively analyze the more than 200 damaged lakes on Mars and their combined effects on a planetary scale. Based on surface data collected by NASA's Curiosity rover, scientists placed the Martian valleys into two groups - those formed by gradual erosion, and those that emerged when water overflowed from the crater and caused flooding.

A comparative analysis of the depth, length, and volume of these valleys shows that these see-through floods are of very high intensity. For example, the average depth of a valley caused by a see-through flood is more than twice that of a valley that has formed slowly over a long period of time due to erosion.

The NASA-backed study suggests that the deep canyons on Mars have more to do with these catastrophic floods. Compared to periods on Earth where such changes occur over hundreds and thousands of years, these surface events occur on Mars in just a few months or years.

The new research challenges existing models for studying Mars, which happen to be based on how Earth's surface has evolved over thousands of years. It actually hypothesizes whether the catastrophe should serve as an alternative lens for studying the evolutionary history of Mars.