A vast ocean likely covered one-third of the surface of Mars some 3.5 billion years ago, according to a new study conducted by University of Colorado at Boulder scientists.
The CU-Boulder study is the first to combine the analysis of water-related features including scores of delta deposits and thousands of river valleys to test for the occurrence of an ocean sustained by a global hydrosphere on early Mars. While the notion of a large, ancient ocean on Mars has been repeatedly proposed and challenged over the past two decades, the new study provides further support for the idea of a sustained sea on the Red Planet during the Noachian era more than 3 billion years ago, said CU-Boulder researcher Gaetano Di Achille, lead author on the study.
July 11th, 2010
New CU-Boulder Study Indicates an Ancient Ocean May Have Covered One-Third of Mars University of Colorado at Boulder
September 8th, 2004
Mars May Have Had Large Sea Near Nasa Rover Landing Site University of Colorado at Boulder
Spacecraft observations of the landing area for one of NASA’s two Mars rovers now indicate there likely was an enormous sea or lake covering the region in the past, according to a new University of Colorado at Boulder study. Research Associate Brian Hynek of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics said data from the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey spacecraft now show that the region surrounding the Opportunity rover’s landing site probably had a body of water at least 330,000 square kilometers, or 127,000 square miles. That would make the ancient sea larger in surface area than all the Great Lakes combined, or comparable to Europe’s Baltic Sea.