Subsurface Ice Content in the Polar Region of Mars: Comparison Between North and South

Details Subsurface Ice Content in the Polar Region of Mars: Comparison Between North and South Subsurface Ice Content in the Polar Region of Mars: Comparison Between North and South

Dec 2002

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufm.p11b..02b&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #P11B-02

Physics

1060 Planetary Geochemistry (5405, 5410, 5704, 5709, 6005, 6008), 1094 Instruments And Techniques, 5410 Composition, 5462 Polar Regions, 5464 Remote Sensing

Scientific paper

Recently we published results concerning the subsurface ice content in the south polar region of Mars (Boynton et al. 2002, Science 297:81-85) showing that from latitudes south of about -45 degrees, the regolith consists of two layers: a hydrogen-poor layer overlaying a hydrogen-rich layer. The upper, hydrogen-poor layer has a hydrogen content equivalent to about 1% water, similar to that seen elsewhere on Mars. The lower layer has the equivalent water content of 35% +/- 15% by weight. The upper layer decreases in thickness going poleward from -45 degrees to -77 degrees. We concluded that the hydrogen in the lower layer was in the form of ice, based both on the large hydrogen concentration and the fact that it was only found in regions where ice is predicted to be stable. The northern polar region was covered with its seasonal carbon dioxide cap at the time we published our earlier work, but it is now receding. At the time of this writing we can see as far north as 65 degrees latitude, and the hydrogen content appears to be nearly identical to that in the south at the equivalent latitude. As the cap recedes we expect to be able to collect sufficient data that we can perform a quantitative analysis of the hydrogen content similar to that done in our earlier work. We shall report the results at the meeting and compare the results to our earlier results from the south.

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