March 15, 2002

How did LPSC go for you Ed?

I'll let Odyssey find the water for me, although I admit some of it will be hard to find under all that dust.

Here's a hint of things to come :

http://themis.asu.edu/zoom-chaos_ds.html

"The slopes and floor of these canyons show remarkable variability in the distribution of rocks and fine-grained material. Chaotic terrain may have been formed when subsurface ground water or ice was removed, and the overlying ground collapsed. The release of this water or ice (or both) formed the outflow channel Tiu Valles, which flowed across the Mars Pathfinder landing site."

http://themis.asu.edu/fullimages/chaos_ds.jpg

I believe that dust enriched glacial plates would be a more accurate description of this material. The upper surfaces are dark because the dust has compacted and dessicated, effectively insulating the ice below, but the edges are light because the dust has eroded away from the continuing outflow of water from the water transport layers just under the surface.

Thomas Lee Elifritz
lifeform@atlantic.net
http://www.atlantic.net/~elifritz