{"id":24346,"date":"2022-08-11T13:33:29","date_gmt":"2022-08-11T12:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/?p=24346"},"modified":"2022-08-11T13:33:29","modified_gmt":"2022-08-11T12:33:29","slug":"subsurface-water-mars-subverts-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.innovationnewsnetwork.com\/subsurface-water-mars-subverts-predictions\/24346\/","title":{"rendered":"Subsurface water on Mars subverts predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"
Mars, now a dried-up desert, once ran with water, with the tracks of past streams and rivers still visible across the planet. A leading theory suggested that the water on Mars became part of the minerals that form the underground cement.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n However, a new analysis of seismic data from NASA\u2019s Mars<\/span> InSight<\/span><\/a>\u202fmission has led to several revelations, contradicting this idea. The analysis, led by the <\/span>Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego<\/span><\/a>, discovered a lack of cemented sediments, suggesting a water scarcity.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The <\/span>analysis<\/span><\/a> was published in <\/span>Geophysical Research Letters.\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n First, the upper 300 metres of the subsurface, beneath the landing site near the Martian equator, contains little or no ice.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWe find that Mars\u2019 crust is weak and porous. The sediments are not well-cemented. And there\u2019s no ice or not much ice filling the pore spaces,\u201d said geophysicist Vashan Wright of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and co-author of the analysis.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cThese findings don\u2019t preclude that there could be grains of ice or small balls of ice that are not cementing other minerals together,\u201d said Wright. \u201cThe question is, how likely is ice to be present in that form?\u201d\u202f<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The second revelation contradicts a leading idea about what happened to the water on Mars. The red planet may have harboured oceans of water early in its history. Several experts suspected that much of the water became part of the minerals that <\/span>comprise the<\/span> underground cement<\/span><\/a>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cIf you put water in contact with rocks, you produce a brand-new set of minerals, like clay, so the water\u2019s not a liquid. It\u2019s part of the mineral structure,\u201d said study co-author Michael Manga of the University of California, Berkeley. \u201cThere is some cement, but the rocks are not full of cement.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cWater may also go into minerals that do not act as cement. But the uncemented subsurface removes one way to preserve a record of life or biological activity,\u201d Wright said. By their very nature, cement holds rocks and sediments together, which protects them from erosion.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The lack of cemented sediments suggests a water scarcity in the 300 meters below InSight\u2019s landing site, near the equator. With average temperatures below freezing, the conditions would be right for water to freeze if it were there.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Manga, and many other planetary scientists, have long suspected that the Martian subsurface would be full of ice. With this new evidence, this does not appear to be the case. However, big ice sheets and frozen ground ice remain at the Martian poles.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cAs scientists, we\u2019re now confronted with the best data, the best observations. And our models predicted that there should still be frozen ground at that latitude with aquifers underneath,\u201d said Manga, professor and chair of Earth and planetary science at UC Berkeley.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\nRevelations on Mars\u2019 subsurface water<\/h3>\n