The Holy Grail: A road map for unlocking the climate record stored within Mars’ polar layered deposits

Smith, I. B.; Hayne, P. O.; Byrne, Shane; Becerra, P.; Kahre, M. A.; Calvin, W. M.; Hvidberg, Christine S.; Milkovich, S. M.; Buhler, P. B.; Landis, M. E.; Horgan, B.; Kleinböhl, A.; Perry, M. R.; Obbard, Rachel W.; Stern, J. C.; Piqueux, S.; Thomas, Nicolas; Zacny, K.; Carter, Lynn; Edgar, L. A.; Emmett, Jeremy; Navarro, Thomas; Hanley, J.; Koutnik, M. R.; Putzig, N. E.; Henderson, Bryana L.; Holt, J. W.; Ehlmann, B. L.; Parra, S. A.; Lalich, D. E.; Hansen, C. J.; Hecht, M. H.; Banfield, D.; Herkenhoff, K. E.; Paige, D. A.; Skidmore, M.; Staehle, Robert L.; Siegler, M.

doi:10.1016/j.pss.2020.104841

Cited by 39 publications

(42 citation statements)

References 203 publications

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“…However, future exploration of the margin of the northern GrIS could better constrain the geometric and englacial conditions that result in detectable surface and englacial stratigraphy. Such data could inform instrument requirements for future interplanetary missions to study the Martian climate history recorded by the NPLD (Smith and others, 2020 b ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The age of surface-exposed ice along the northern margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet

et al. 2020

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Each summer, surface melting of the margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet exposes a distinctive visible stratigraphy that is related to past variability in subaerial dust deposition across the accumulation zone and subsequent ice flow toward the margin. Here we map this surface stratigraphy along the northern margin of the ice sheet using mosaicked Sentinel-2 multispectral satellite imagery from the end of the 2019 melt season and finer-resolution WorldView-2/3 imagery for smaller regions of interest. We trace three distinct transitions in apparent dust concentration and the top of a darker basal layer. The three dust transitions have been identified previously as representing late-Pleistocene climatic transitions, allowing us to develop a coarse margin chronostratigraphy for northern Greenland. Substantial folding of late-Pleistocene stratigraphy is observed but uncommon. The oldest conformal surface-exposed ice in northern Greenland is likely located adjacent to Warming Land and may be up to ~55 thousand years old. Basal ice is commonly exposed hundreds of metres from the ice margin and may indicate a widespread frozen basal thermal state. We conclude that the ice margin across northern Greenland offers multiple opportunities to recover paleoclimatically distinct ice relative to previously studied regions in southwestern Greenland.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The age of surface-exposed ice along the northern margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet

et al. 2020

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“…Changes in the distribution of frost and ice within small craters have been observed, although their significance remains unclear since both deposition and removal occurs, sometimes within the same crater (Landis et al, 2021). It is unknown whether the polar cap is gaining or losing mass overall (e.g., Byrne, 2009;I. B. Smith et al, 2020).…”

Section: Defrosting and Sublimation Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It is unknown whether the polar cap is gaining or losing mass overall (e.g., Byrne, 2009; I. B. Smith et al., 2020).…”

Section: Periglacial and Polar Processesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Active Mars: A Dynamic World

et al. 2021

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An axiom of geology is that the present is the key to the past. Knowledge of current processes and their consequences is an essential tool for understanding history, including the ancient rock record and the associated climate. Modern Mars is cold, with a thin atmosphere, and has previously been thought to have little ongoing geomorphic activity-especially when compared with ancient Mars, which had apparent largescale, Earth-like processes, as inferred from ancient landforms. This interpretation has led much research to focus not on the present Martian environment, but rather on Mars' early conditions and climate change over time. However, in recent years, observations of ongoing surface changes have proliferated, demonstrating that Mars' landscape is actively evolving and likely has been throughout the Amazonian epoch. These observed geomorphic changes shed light on a variety of active processes, some with no terrestrial analog, and reveal present-day Mars to be a dynamic world. This in turn may mean that more of the ancient and recent Martian geologic record can be explained without dramatic climate change.This work presents a comprehensive summary and categorization of the many types of observed changes on the Martian surface. Aeolian and frost-related surface activity are discussed in more detail in a parallel review by Diniega et al. (2021), which focuses on connecting specific landforms to their formative processes; the focus herein is to provide a broad overview of known types of changes in surface morphology and albedo. Weather and seasonal frost and ice are not discussed in detail here, except where necessary to describe their effects on the surface; observations of the atmosphere were reviewed by M. D. Smith (2008) and Martínez et al. (2017), and seasonal frost is discussed in Piqueux, Kleinböhl, et al. (2015) and references therein. Weathering and other microscale or chemical processes are not discussed. Even with these exclusions, the scope of the subject is broad and we have focused on the key discoveries and constraints.Studying surface changes on Mars yields a unique look at processes within an un-Earthly environment.

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“…Future missions to Mars have the chance to collect orbital data, ground-based measurements and sample sequestered subsurface glacial ice (a number of priorities related to Mars’ ice and climate history have been identified; for example, MEPAG ICE-SAG, 2019; Smith et al, 2020). Some important new datasets to be considered include orbital radar sounding with a vertical resolution of centimeters to meters that can detect: debris-ice interfaces of buried ground-ice deposits; ice and any debris bands that may remain in glacier-like forms; and structures in the debris layer, including the contact with the buried ice within lobate debris aprons.…”

Section: Overview and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The questions discussed here that relate primarily to the evolution of Martian glacier-like forms and lobate debris aprons should be considered along with key objectives that have been defined more generally in relation to all ice reservoirs on Mars (e.g. Smith et al, 2020). In addition to providing insight to physical processes, understanding debris-covered ice on Mars has important resource ramifications for future landed investigations and any future crewed missions to Mars planning to extract ice that is currently covered by dust/debris (e.g.…”

Section: Overview and Outlookmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contextualizing lobate debris aprons and glacier-like forms on Mars with debris-covered glaciers on Earth

Koutnik

Pathare

2021

Progress in Physical Geography: Earth and Environment

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Debris-covered glaciers from around the world offer distinct environmental, climatic, and historical conditions from which to study the effects of debris on glacier-ice evolution. A rich literature on debris-covered glaciers exists from decades of field work, laboratory studies, remote-sensing observations, and numerical modeling. In general, the base of knowledge established by studying periglacial, glacial, and paraglacial landforms on Earth has been applied to aid interpretation of ice-rich or ice-remnant landforms on Mars, but research has progressed on both planets. For Mars, the spatial distribution of lobate debris aprons and glacier-like forms, in particular, is critical to constraining past climate conditions when such features were active, reconstructing past ice extent, and estimating the total inventory of buried ice remaining in the mid-latitudes of Mars. This review spans a range of knowledge about debris-covered glaciers on Earth, in order to add context to investigations of dust and debris-covered ice on Mars and to put research on both planets in a perspective aimed at maximizing process-based understanding of glacier evolution. The state of knowledge and some gaps in knowledge on Mars are discussed in relation to possible avenues for future research in how landforms are classified, advances in comparative planetology, and new understanding from future missions. While this review is focused primarily on processes controlling active debris-covered glaciers, a key to understanding glacier change through time is to consider individual landforms in context with the full-system environment in which they are found. For Earth, this includes understanding local and regional controls on current glacier change, and how these processes relate to landform development in the past as well as what may develop in the future. For Mars, this includes evaluating how present-day landforms elucidate past ice activity and environmental conditions during epochs when orbital parameters, climate, and water ice distribution were substantially different.

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The Holy Grail: A road map for unlocking the climate record stored within Mars’ polar layered deposits

Cited by 39 publications

References 203 publications

The age of surface-exposed ice along the northern margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet

The age of surface-exposed ice along the northern margin of the Greenland Ice Sheet

Active Mars: A Dynamic World

Contextualizing lobate debris aprons and glacier-like forms on Mars with debris-covered glaciers on Earth

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