Other
Scientific paper
May 2004
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2004agusm.p52a..03d&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2004, abstract #P52A-03
Other
1866 Soil Moisture, 5464 Remote Sensing
Scientific paper
Hypotheses involving water have been proposed for Martian surface processes such as gullies, duracrust cementation and dark slope streaks. Future SAR missions capable of detecting soil moisture could test these hypotheses, but standard soil moisture retrieval techniques for SAR data such as the Integral Equation Method (IEM) are not applicable to Mars due to the current lack of high resolution surface roughness data. Another approach would be to conduct repeat passes, where surface roughness is assumed to be constant and changes in backscatter are related to changes in soil moisture. This study was undertaken to determine optimal parameters for detecting soil moisture at Mars analog sites. Quad-polarized C, L and P band AIRSAR data at 11m slant resolution were collected at four sites: a fluvial plain near Cameron, AZ; artificial recharge basins near Tucson, AZ and gullies in San Juan Mountains, CO and Death Valley, CA. Soil moisture was measured at a range of depths (0-40cm) with gravimetric sampling and over a large spatial extent with Time Domain Reflectometry (TDR). For a homogenous unvegetated sand bar at Cameron, a significant correlation (< 0.025 level of significance in a t-distribution test) was found for L-VV and L-TP with soil moisture at 0 cm depth, C-HV had a weaker correlation (< 0.05 level of significance) to 0 cm moisture on both the sand bar and the unvegetated surface of a recharge basin. The lack of response to deeper moisture in this study cannot discount the potential for detecting deeper moisture on Mars if the radar wavelength is long enough to penetrate a desiccated upper layer. Further analysis of the gully sites and TDR data will also be presented.
Baker Victor
Chien Steve
Davies Abigail
Doggett T.
Dohm James
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