How Intensive was Fluvial Erosion during the Martian Noachian?

Physics

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5415 Erosion And Weathering

Scientific paper

The most important process forming the Noachian landscape was impact cratering, but this landscape has been strongly modified by fluvial, igneous, tectonic, and eolian processes. Most of the valley networks on the highlands date to the late Noachian and early Hesperian; many of these, however, appear to have resulted from late-stage incision into earlier, more extensive Noachian basin fills and alluvial fans. The morphology of most degraded highland impact craters less than 200 km in diameter is consistent with infilling by 0.5 to 1 km of fluvial deposits eroded from interior crater walls, presumably by runoff erosion. Evidence for large Noachian lakes on the highlands supports widespread precipitation. These degraded craters are superimposed upon a broader landscape of basins and ridges typically 200+ km in size (e.g., Frey et al., GRL 29(10), 2002). This broadly rolling landscape is best interpreted as being an earliest Noachian cratered landscape smoothed by ejecta deposition from basin scale impacts (e.g., Hellas, Argyre, and Isidis) and possibly pyroclasic airfall deposits. The mantled basins, presumably ancient impact craters, often consist of multiple coalesced impact basins, but they generally lack rims between the constituent impact basins. This pattern suggests that extensive fluvial erosion leading to basin integration occurred even during the earliest Noachian and prior to the basin mantling events.

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