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| Titel |
Estimates of Denudation Rates and Implications for Climate Control, Phlegra Montes (Mars) |
| VerfasserIn |
Stephan van Gasselt, Angelo-Pio Rossi, Csilla Orgel, Julia Schulz |
| Konferenz |
EGU General Assembly 2015
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| Medientyp |
Artikel
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| Sprache |
Englisch
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| Digitales Dokument |
PDF |
| Erschienen |
In: GRA - Volume 17 (2015) |
| Datensatznummer |
250104812
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| Publikation (Nr.) |
 EGU/EGU2015-4249.pdf |
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| Zusammenfassung |
| The Phlegra Montes, Mars, are located north–east of the Elysium volcanic rise
and form a 1,250 km long arcuate topographic ridge composed of Hesperian to
Noachian–aged remnant massifs with associated debris aprons and lineated valley fill
features.
The region covers more than twenty degrees in latitude (165°E, 29.5–51.0°N) and is
formed by a complex system of isolated hills, ridges and small basins that provide
insight into large climate–controlled geomorphologic settings and processes on
Mars.
We here report on a systematic survey that has been carried out to derive denudation–rate
estimates for mass–wasting units under the assumption of hyper–arid climate conditions
which favour specific denudation phenomena such as gelifluction. This survey complements
earlier work focused on the latitudinal dependence of surface ages. In order to estimate
denudation rates, ages based on impact-crater size-frequency measurements have to be
extracted for characteristic areas first.
High denudation rates of over 10–20 B (corresponding to 10–20 mm/103 a)
across the overall study area might be partially related to the high local relief but are
more probably suggestive of a complex landscape development characterised by an
interplay between atmospheric ice—deposition (potentially caused by periodic
changes in spin–axis obliquities) and in-situ fragmentation, such as congelifraction
and gravitational mobilisation, e.g. creep, of ice and rock. Our estimates provide
further quantitative constraints on the history of remnant degradation at and near the
dichotomy boundary and pose new challenges to unwind and separate different climatic
processes. |
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