Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agufm.p72c..05s&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2002, abstract #P72C-05
Other
1823 Frozen Ground, 1866 Soil Moisture, 5470 Surface Materials And Properties, 6255 Neptune
Scientific paper
Mars Odyssey disclosed the existence of the vast quantities of water-ice beneath the Martian ground surface. Now we have become to able to discuss the ground ice on Mars, admitting its existence. However, another question was brought up ; we need to explain how this ice was formed. Through the analysis of surface landform, we now almost agree for that Martian environment was warm and wet in the past, and (at least) once had much water on its surface. Nevertheless, the existing of ice-rich layer in just near from the surface is controversial. There is no good idea to supply enough amount of water to subsurface. As the Martian environment cooled down, due to decrease of precipitation, it should have become dry like terrestrial polar desert. In this case, water should go to deeper part of the ground. The "wet and cold" situation is hard to imagine. And after once Martian environment had cooled and dried, even if liquid water was supplied from the surface, the volumetric ice content of the soil cannot be more than the porosity of the soil (20-30% would be reasonable). In this study, we proposed one possible scenario to form this ice-rich permafrost layer, and discussed the required conditions. Our concept is taking account of the migration of the soil water during its freezing, like the frost heaving or the formation of the ice lenses. We applied the 1-D soil model for Martian condition, assuming the simple cooling climate history and constant heatflow value. The original idea of the model was developed by Harlan (1973), both of the flow of heat and soil moisture were taken into account. We calculated the soil water migration and ice segregation, to estimate how much ice can be formed near the surface. Calculation was performed under the several parameter sets of surface cooling rate, initial water content of the soil, and crustal heatflow value. From these numerical experiments, we found that this mechanism could work in some range of the parameters. As to the surface temperature, the slow decrease (we assumed the monotonous cooling) is adequate. About the heatflow, neither too small nor too large value were appropriate, but medium value was suitable for producing ice-rich layer.
Hamano Yozo
Sueyoshi T.
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