Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2005
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005agufm.p31a0198p&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2005, abstract #P31A-0198
Physics
5422 Ices, 5462 Polar Regions, 6225 Mars
Scientific paper
We present observations of small-scale pitting within the Swiss cheese terrain of the carbon dioxide South Polar Residual Cap (SPRC) and consider the implications of their rapid cascade-like evolution. We show that such pitting cascades: (1) only occur near the walls of thick Swiss cheese mesas; (2) rarely occur in polygonally-cracked mesas; and (3) occur far more often in Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Years 2 and 3 than in MGS Year 1. We propose that pitting results from depressurization of a sealed layer, which requires subsurface heating that cannot be presently maintained by lateral heat conduction. Instead, we attribute the pressurization and heating implied by pitting to a solid state greenhouse initiated by the recent formation of slab CO2 ice during the southern spring and summer of MGS Year 1, which we show is consistent with Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) 25-micron band depth measurements of the SPRC over the last three Mars years.
Byrne Shane
Ingersoll Andrew
Pathare Asmin
Titus Timothy
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