T84 Geomorphology and Landscape Evolution of Mars

Monday, 16 October 2023
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
323

DECIPHERING MARS' GLOBAL ATMOSPHERE THROUGH THE LENS OF BARCHAN DUNE MORPHOLOGY

Paper number: T84-12
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 10:40 AM – 11:00 AM

Authors

Abstract

In the absence of widespread meteorological data, active landforms on Mars offer a lens through which environmental conditions can be observed and monitored. Specifically, barchan dunes serve as reliable indicators of dominant winds, sediment availability, and substrate properties. In this study, we leverage the abundance of barchan dunes on Mars to investigate atmospheric and surface processes on a global scale: using a convolutional neural network, we outline over a million barchan dunes on the martian surface, and analyze trends in slipface orientation, dimensions, horn asymmetry, and horn elongation.

Our study opens several new avenues for understanding Mars' atmosphere and the physical laws that govern aeolian sand transport; the correlation between the sizes of incipient dunes and atmospheric density sheds light on the hydrodynamic principles controlling the formation of large martian ripples. The orientations of barchan slipfaces, which predominantly align with the primary wind direction, provides a detailed picture of wind circulation across the Martian surface. The changing dynamics of dune slipfaces in volatile-rich environments reveal how aeolian sand transport responds to the presence of surface and ground ice. These findings underscore the importance of global geomorphological investigations, especially those aided by machine learning techniques, in advancing our understanding of planetary climates and physics-based theory in extraterrestrial environments.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 55, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2023AM-388903

© Copyright 2023 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.