Mars did Have Moving Glaciers, but They Behaved Differently in the Planet's Lower Gravity universetoday storybywill
For the sake of their study, Galofre and her colleagues modeled how Martian gravity would affect the feedback between how fast an ice sheet moves and how water drains below it. Faster water drainage would increase friction between the rock and ice, leaving under-ice channels that would likely persist over time. The absence of these U-shaped valleys means that ice sheets on Mars likely moved and eroded the ground under them at extremely slow rates compared to what occurs on Earth.
In the past, glaciers may have existed on the surface of Mars, providing meltwater during the summer to create the features we see today. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/ESA These findings demonstrate how glacial ice on Mars would drain meltwater much more efficiently than glaciers on Earth. This would largely prevent lubrication at the base of the ice sheets, which would lead to faster sliding rates and enhanced glacial-driven erosion. In short, their study demonstrated that lineated landforms on Earth associated with glacial activity would not have had time to develop on Mars.
In addition to explaining why Mars lacks certain glacial features, the work also has implications for the possibility of life on Mars and whether that life could survive the transition to a global cryosphere we see today. According to the authors, an ice sheet could provide a steady water supply, protection, and stability to any subglacial bodies of water where life could have emerged.
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