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Looking for life on Mars: what can the valleys that once flowed into Jezero crater tell us about the best rocks to sample?

Featured image: Artist depiction of the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover on Mars. Public domain (NASA/JPL-Caltech).

Paper: Fluvial Regimes, Morphometry, and Age of Jezero Crater Paleolake Inlet Valleys and Their Exobiological Significance for the 2020 Rover Mission Landing Site.

Authors: Nicolas Mangold, Gilles Dromart, Veronique Ansan, Francesco Salese, Maarten G. Kleinhans, Marion Masse, Cathy Quantin-Nataf, and Kathryn M. Stack.

On Mars, we see a very different landscape to that on Earth. Although now an arid planet, great scars visible from space – such as the colossal Valles Marineris, which dwarfs Earth’s Grand Canyon – hint at a once watery world. But scientists still aren’t sure whether water on Mars might once have hosted life. On the 30th of July, NASA will launch the Mars 2020 mission, which will gather clues about the planet’s past and seek signs of ancient life on Mars. An essential part of such a space mission is extensive planning, so that scientists can target the most important rocks for study and sampling when the rover gets to Mars. A recent study by Nicolas Mangold and colleagues did just that by looking closely at the landing site for this next Mars mission, known as Jezero crater.

Continue reading “Looking for life on Mars: what can the valleys that once flowed into Jezero crater tell us about the best rocks to sample?”
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Rivers of Memory: India

Paper: Evolution of modern river systems: an assessment of ‘landscape memory’ in Indian river systems

Authors: Vikrant Jain, Sonam, Ajit Singh, Rajiv Sinha, S. K. Tandon

“A river cuts through rock not because of its power, but because of its persistence.”

James N Watkins

In geomorphology, the persistence of rivers is etched into the very landscape – a memory of the forces that once shaped it, and continue to do so, slowly, and inexorably. Landscape memory, as Gary John Brierley once wrote, is the imprint of the past upon contemporary landscapes, which include geologic, climatic, and anthropogenic factors.

The rivers of the Indian subcontinent bear witness to forces that shaped them over millennia – and a recent publication in the Journal of International Geosciences traces the evolution of India’s river systems at different time scales.

Continue reading “Rivers of Memory: India”
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Sediment riding on ice to the rescue of vulnerable salt marshes

Featured image by Jennifer Crowder from Pixabay.

Paper: Enhanced, climate-driven sedimentation on salt marshes
Authors: D.M. FitzGerald, Z.J. Hughes, I.Y. Georgiou, S. Black, A. Novak
Journal: Geophysical Research Letters

Accelerated sea level rise threatens to drown many of the world’s salt marshes, but sediment riding on ice rafts might be coming to the rescue. Continue reading “Sediment riding on ice to the rescue of vulnerable salt marshes”
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Do melting glaciers release extra sediment?

Featured image: Pitztal Glacier, Austria by annca on Pixabay

Paper: Increased Subglacial Sediment Discharge in a Warming Climate: Consideration of Ice Dynamics, Glacial Erosion, and Fluvial Sediment Transport
Authors: Ian Delaney and Surendra Adhikari

The world’s glaciers are shrinking, sending great quantities of water downstream in a geologic instant. But new research shows a lesser-known effect of climate warming: a large increase in sediment released from melting glaciers that might rearrange the shape of Earth’s surface. Continue reading “Do melting glaciers release extra sediment?”