Other
Scientific paper
May 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agusm...p32a10t&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2001, abstract #P32A-10
Other
3210 Modeling, 5418 Heat Flow, 6225 Mars, 8135 Hydrothermal Systems (8424), 8147 Planetary Interiors (5430, 5724)
Scientific paper
This work is motivated by recent reports suggesting that there may be sources of liquid water at shallow depths beneath the Martian surface. The common view is that the Martian permafrost is at least several km thick, and that transporting liquid water from depths below the permafrost to the surface would therefore be very difficult. We are interested in the possibility that geothermal gradient-driven groundwater convection occurs and is capable of thinning the Martian permafrost layer in some regions to a thickness of 1 km or less, and that this could be related to the presence of near-surface liquid water. If deep subsurface convection, as suggested here, can bring liquid water to within about 1 km of the Martian surface, or closer, due to the action of geothermal heating alone, local channeling effects (e.g., in rubbleized crater rim material) may well be able to bring it the rest of the way. Here we report on the results of our initial 3D calculations of thermohydrologic behavior on a planet with a frozen surface heated from below. As our results indicate, adopting a 3D convective view of the Martian subsurface rather than a 1D static view significantly changes the possibilities with respect to the depth at which liquid water might exist on Mars. Factors examined include surface temperature, heat flux magnitude, salt content and regolith permeability structure. For reasonable estimates of relevant parameters, the effective Rayleigh number exceeds the critical value by many-fold. Convective patterns generally contain a mix of rolls and plumes. Although the average ice thickness is typically several kms, thinning of ice above rolls and especially above plumes is significant, reducing ice thickness to as little as 300 m in some cases.
Cuzzi Jeff N.
Rosenberg Nina D.
Travis Bryan J.
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