Basin Overflow Floods on Mars

Mathematics – Logic

Scientific paper

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5415 Erosion And Weathering, 5419 Hydrology And Fluvial Processes, 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

On Earth, the most intense recognized historical and paleofloods have been ice dambursts or overflows of large basins, often initiated by abundant runoff or meltwater from the contributing watersheds. Many impact craters and other basins also overflowed in the Martian cratered highlands, and some of their incised outlet valleys similarly record evidence of erosive floods. Otherwise, the commonly small, enclosed watersheds on Mars contain poorly developed valley networks and relatively simple depositional landforms, which record little evidence of intense (by terrestrial standards) meteorological floods. For these reasons, basin overflows may have been disproportionately important mechanisms for incision of large valleys on Mars. Many of the Martian outflow channels head in topographic settings that favored ponding, including large canyons, impact or intercrater basins, chaotic terrain basins, and grabens. This topography may have accumulated somewhat slower groundwater discharges from the subsurface to support peak channel discharges of 106-108 m3/s. To yield a discharge of 106, 107, and 108 m3/s from a dam failure with a width/depth ratio of 5, the model predicts that a breach of ~100, 250, and 640 m, respectively, must form rapidly with respect to the decline of lake level. Terrestrial damburst floods have not exceeded ~106 m3/s for earthen dams and ~107 m3/s for ice dams, but brecciation of the Martian surface by impact cratering may have allowed larger damburst failures, whereas solid bedrock was exposed at shallower depths in the terrestrial examples. Moreover, many of the Martian basins were much larger than enclosed continental basins on Earth, so long-lived overflows may have facilitated entrenchment of deeper channels. Some large, mid-latitude basins overflowed to carve Ma'adim Vallis and the Uzboi-Ladon-Margaritifer Valles system, which are similar in scale to the terrestrial Grand Canyon but record much larger formative discharges. Models of damburst floods yield peak discharges that are similar to values derived from channel dimensions in several cases. Smaller basin overflows incised smaller outlet valleys at many locations on Mars.

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