March 13, 2002

In December 2000, Michael C. Malin and Kenneth S. Edgett (Malin Space Science Systems) unveiled peculiar images taken of the red planet by the Mars Global Surveyor. The images revealed that thick stacks of layered deposits blanket large tracts of the Martian landscape — features that Malin and Edgett attributed to being formed within ancient glacial lakes. The hypothesis drew immediate respect: for example, the craters containing the putative lakes demonstrated evidence of showing how they could have become filled with water, even though streams or rivers did not appear to breach the crater rims. Many simple lake-filling theories were proposed, some are now widely accepted.

Last year, at the private island resort in the Bahamas, a team of scientists from Formation Inc. - The Information Corporation, proposed an entirely credible origin for the layered terrains on Mars — glacial ice. The group, led by Thomas Lee Elifritz, believe that early Mars was alive with hydrogeologic and volcanic activity. Among the most active of the steaming peaks were a group of mountains in the Tharsis region. Eruptions from these huge volcanoes would have sent up many huge plumes of water vapor, which in turn settled across the Martian landscape. Elifritz and his team found that the layered deposits were thickest near Tharsis and thinned out with distance. He also noted that depressions such as the deep Valles Marineris canyons tended to be boardered by large accumulations of glacial ice. Both results were consistent with widespread water vapor fallout. The Valles Marineris canyons, for example, exhibit layers some 6 kilometers thick. According to Elifritz, this "opened the door that many of these [features] are lakes." In order to explain the layers, "You don't need to invoke basaltic lava thoughout Mars's history."