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13 - Playa environments on Earth: possible analogs for Mars

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2009

By
Goro Komatsu ,
Gian Gabriele Ori ,
Lucia Marinangeli  and
Jeffrey E. Moersch
Edited by
Mary Chapman
Goro Komatsu
Affiliation:
International Research School of Planetary Sciences, Universita' d'Annunzio, Pescara
Gian Gabriele Ori
Affiliation:
International Research School of Planetary Sciences, Universita' d'Annunzio, Pescara
Lucia Marinangeli
Affiliation:
International Research School of Planetary Sciences, Universita' d'Annunzio, Pescara
Jeffrey E. Moersch
Affiliation:
Dept. of Geological Sciences, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Mary Chapman
Affiliation:
United States Geological Survey, Arizona
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Summary

Introduction

Playas (dry lakes) are a type of lacustrine system that are dry most of the time, and can be flooded only occasionally. A playa environment, despite its dry conditions, is characterized by an active hydrological cycle. This is evidenced by a wide range of hydrogeological processes operating today or in the recent past. Therefore, playas are a fundamentally different environment from dry desiccated deserts, and identification of playas on Mars has significant implications for the planet's hydroclimatic history.

Mars currently is dominated by a hyperarid environment. Today, water appears to exist abundantly in the Martian polar caps, and also in the surrounding high-latitude regions, but as near-surface ice (Boynton et al., 2002), not liquid water. Whether or not there are localities with recent active hydrogeological processes is uncertain. However, there may have been sites of stable lakes (deep-water lakes) in the past. Such sites would have changed to playa environments, owing to the decline in the water budget, and eventually desiccated completely. Photogeologic surveys have identified possible paleoshorelines in the northern plains (Parker et al., 1989) and crater lakes (Cabrol and Grin, 1999; Ori et al., 2000a; Malin and Edgett, 2003). If these features are in fact paleoshorelines, it would necessarily imply that conditions suitable for stable oceans and lakes must have existed at some point in Mars' history. Ice-covered paleolakes could have also existed, and their shoreline geomorphology could differ from that of paleolakes without ice cover.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Geology of Mars
Evidence from Earth-Based Analogs
 , pp. 322 - 348
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

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