Coming from you, that's a compliment

Twice Science magazine has given large play to "watery Mars" nonsense, first with the initial Malin articles, and more recently with Mitranov's work. We'll forget for a moment that the most recent "water" was "infered" by differentially comparing the readings of 2 separate very delicate instruments, along with a fairly limited understanding of the actual radiation environment and lithosphere of Mars which produced those readings in the first place...

Instead, let's turn to the image of the clathrate outgassing:

http://www.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/mars/Polar.html

According to your view, the CO2 is merely melting, flowing down the gullies, picking up dirt, and spewing forth, leaving all the other gullies elsewhere on Mars to be formed by the water which you so crave...

But then, like so much of your work, this ignores the fundamental laws of physics. If the CO2 ice here were merely melting, it would instantly evaporate into the near vacuum of Mars atmosphere, and not flow down, and not spew.

Instead what we see is explosive outgassing with force at depth: the gullies on the top surface form because of sub-surface collapse.

Note also the debris streams - there has to be sufficient force to pick up debris, and your model does not provide that force

Now if Hoffman's not unreseaonable request for re-imaging of the area were not being blown off by the MOC team, then we possibly could discover why the gullies are forming where they do - no doubt, it's in response to releases along sub-surface faults triggered by the annual melt.... and we would also better know exactly how much debris these fountains carried...

ep