Abstract.
The Mangala Valles system is an ∼ ∼900 km fluvially carved channel system located southwest of the Tharsis rise and is unique among the martian outflow channels in that it heads at a linear fracture within the crust as opposed to a collapsed region of chaos as is the case with the circum-Chryse channels. Mangala Valles is confined within a broad, north–south trending depression, and begins as a single valley measuring up to 350 km wide that extends northward from a Memnonia Fossae graben, across the southern highlands toward the northern lowlands. Approximately 600 km downstream, this single valley branches into multiple channels, which ultimately lose their expression at the dichotomy boundary. Previous investigations of Mangala Vallis suggested that many of the units mapped interior to the valley were depositional, related to flooding, and that a minimum of two distinct periods of flooding separated by tens to hundreds of millions of years were required to explain the observed geology. We use infrared and visible images from the THermal EMission Imaging System (THEMIS), and topographic data from the Mars Orbiting Laser Altimeter (MOLA), to investigate the nature of the units mapped within Mangala Vallis. We find that the geomorphology of the units, as well as their topographic and geographic distribution, are consistent with most of them originating from a single assemblage of volcanic flow deposits, once continuous with volcanic flows to the south of the Memnonia Fossae source graben. These flows resurfaced the broad, north–south trending depression into which Mangala Vallis formed prior to any fluvial activity. Later flooding scoured and eroded this volcanic assemblage north of the Mangala source graben, resulting in the present distribution of the units within Mangala Vallis. Additionally, our observations suggest that a single period of catastrophic flooding, rather than multiple periods separated by tens to hundreds of millions of years, is consistent with and can plausibly explain the interior geology of Mangala Vallis. Further, we present a new scenario for the source and delivery of water to the Mangala source graben that models flow of groundwater through a sub-cryosphere aquifer and up a fracture that cracks the cryosphere and taps this aquifer. The results of our model indicate that the source graben, locally enlarged to a trough near the head region of Mangala, would have required less than several days to fill up prior to any spill-over of water to the north. Through estimates of the volume of material missing from Mangala (13,000–20,000 km3), and calculation of mean discharge rates through the channel system (∼ ∼5 × 106 m3 s−1), we estimate that the total duration of fluvial activity through the Mangala Valles was 1–3 months.
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Abbreviations
- Parameter: :
-
Definition (Units)
- H :
-
water head height in aquifer above base of cryosphere fracture (m)
- L :
-
lateral length scale of aquifer (m)
- P atm :
-
atmospheric pressure (500) (Pa)
- P b :
-
pressure at bottom of cryosphere fracture (Pa)
- P t :
-
pressure in unsaturated portion of hydrosphere
- R :
-
hydraulic radius of water flowing in channel (m)
- S :
-
sine of slope of channel floor (none)
- U a :
-
mean flow speed of water through aquifer (m s−1)
- U f :
-
mean flow speed of water through cryosphere fracture (m s−1)
- U n :
-
mean flow speed of water through notch (m s−1)
- X :
-
lateral distance traveled by water flowing through aquifer (m)
- ΔP :
-
resistance to flow through aquifer (Pa)
- Σ:
-
specific storage of the aquifer (m−1)
- f c :
-
Darcy–Weisbach friction factor for channel flow (none)
- f f :
-
friction factor for the cryosphere fracture (none)
- g :
-
acceleration due to gravity (3.74) (m s−2)
- h a :
-
thickness of aquifer (m)
- h f :
-
vertical height of fracture/cryosphere thickness (m)
- k :
-
permeability of aquifer (m2)
- r :
-
fracture wall roughness scale length (0.01) (m)
- w :
-
width of cryosphere fracture (m)
- η:
-
viscosity of water at temperature T (Pa s)
- μ:
-
shear modulus of cryosphere rock (Pa)
- ν:
-
Poisson’s ratio of cryosphere rock (none)
- ρw :
-
density of liquid water (1000) (kg m−3)
- τ:
-
decay time of initial transient high pressure gradient (s)
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Acknowledgements
Thanks are extended to Caleb Fassett, David Shean, Karl Mitchell, Harald Leask, Jim Zimbelman, Bob Craddock, Mary Chapman, and Ken Tanaka for productive discussions about this work, and to Jim Zimbelman and Bob Craddock for detailed reviews of the manuscript. Thanks to Caleb Fassett and David Shean for their help with data processing and figure preparation. JWH gratefully acknowledges grants from the NASA Mars Data Analysis Program and the NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program. LW gratefully acknowledges PPARC grant PPA/G/S/2000/00521.
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Ghatan, G.J., Head, J.W. & Wilson, L. MANGALA VALLES, MARS: ASSESSMENT OF EARLY STAGES OF FLOODING AND DOWNSTREAM FLOOD EVOLUTION. Earth Moon Planet 96, 1–57 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11038-005-9009-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11038-005-9009-y