Liquid water found flowing on Mars? Not yet

Kirk made a DEM of the crater in the Centauri Montes region where the Malin team found a new bright streak in a gully.

Once the DEM was constructed, Pelletier used the topographic information along with a commercially available numerical computer model to predict how deposits in that particular gully would appear if left by a pure water flood versus how the deposits would appear if left by a dry avalanche.

The model also predicted specific conditions needed to create each type of debris flow.

"This is the first time that anyone has applied numerical computer models to the bright deposits in gullies on Mars or to DEMs produced from HiRISE images," Pelletier said.

When he compared the actual conditions of the bright deposit and its HiRISE image to the predictions made by the model, the dry avalanche model was a better fit.

"The dry granular case is both simpler and more closely matches the observations," Pelletier said.

"It's just a test," he said. It's either more like A or more like B. We were surprised that it was more like B."

Pelletier said these new findings indicate, "There are other ways of getting deposits that look just like this one that do not require water."

One of the team's next steps is using HiRISE images to examine similar bright deposits on less-steep slopes to sort out what processes might have formed those deposits.

Researcher contact information:

Jon Pelletier
520-626-2126

Alfred McEwen
520-621-4573

Related Web pages:

Jon Pelletier
http://geomorphology.geo.arizona.edu

Alfred McEwen
http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/resources/faculty/faculty.php?nom=McEwen

HiRISE
http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter
http://www.nasa.gov/mro