Hydrology of early Mars: Lake basins

Abstract

[1] A hydrologic routing model has been applied to the Noachian cratered highlands of Mars to establish the climatic conditions required to maintain exit breached lakes on early Mars and the likely fraction of the upland surface that would have hosted lakes whether they overflowed or not. The climatic conditions were expressed as a ratio of net evaporative loss from lakes to the surface runoff from uplands (the "X ratio"). Simulations were conducted using 16 different X ratios. The lake area, volume, and number of overflowing lakes decrease as climate becomes drier (larger X ratio). The modal frequency of the X ratio for the overflow of highland basins with eroded exit breaches was 5.0, which is comparable to that of the Great Basin region in the western United States during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). This indicates that lakes on early Mars were likely to have been at least as extensive as those in the Great Basin region during the LGM.

Paleohydrology of Eberswalde crater, Mars

“…Valley networks hundreds of kilometers long, valley heads near topographic divides, locally dense dissection, overflowed basins, and a need for aquifer recharge to erode the measured volumes of valleys indicate an active hydrological cycle at times in the past (e.g., Grant, 2000;Craddock and Howard, 2002;Fassett and Head, 2008b;Irwin et al, 2008;Matsubara et al, 2011Matsubara et al, , 2013. Degradation of impact craters throughout the Noachian Period and into the Hesperian Period required a more effective geomorphic regime than is found currently on Mars (Craddock and Maxwell, 1993;Grant and Schultz, 1993a;Craddock et al, 1997;Forsberg-Taylor et al, 2004;Golombek et al, 2006).…”

The fluvial history of Mars

“…In most of these lakes, the lake volume is proportional to the watershed area, which suggests that the lakes were fed mostly by precipitation and runoff rather than by groundwater upwelling. Modelling by Matsubara et al [32] suggests that the open basin lakes had rates of evaporative loss over surface runoff comparable to lakes in the Great Basin in the western USA. If climatic conditions were similar to the Great Basin, then the typical lake would have had to persist for several hundred years to maintain the observed lake levels.…”

Fluvial Landforms and the Post-Noachian Environment on Mars

“…To constrain the hydrologic regime associated with the formation of FSVs in our study area, we utilized the hydrologic routing model after Matsubara et al [2011Matsubara et al [ , 2013 water. Due to uncertainties associated with the absolute magnitudes of precipitation, runoff and evaporation, these variables are replaced by the "X-ratio," which serves as a proxy for climatic conditions [Matsubara et al, 2011[Matsubara et al, , 2013.…”

“…Due to uncertainties associated with the absolute magnitudes of precipitation, runoff and evaporation, these variables are replaced by the "X-ratio," which serves as a proxy for climatic conditions [Matsubara et al, 2011[Matsubara et al, , 2013. The X ratio is defined as:…”

“…The output of the regional surface hydrology model, based on runoff vs. evaporation (X-ratio) [Matsubara et al, 2011[Matsubara et al, , 2013, shows inferred flow paths across the landscape and several submerged basins ( Fig. 2.5).…”