An international research team led by the Planetary Science Institute has found evidence for reservoirs of liquid water on Mars at shallow crustal depths of as little as tens of meters.
J. Alexis Palmero Rodriguez, research scientist at PSI, and the research team came to this conclusion after studying collapsed terrains that occur within some of the solar system’s largest channels.
Investigations of similar but vastly larger zones of collapse located where these channels initiate have led previous investigations to postulate that the upper crust of Mars contained vast aquifer systems concealed underneath a global frozen layer kilometers in thickness. However, these zones of large-scale collapse are rare on Mars and their formation most likely took place under exceptional hydrogeologic conditions. The PSI-led team’s work documents the distribution of groundwater within crustal zones located beyond these regions.