Huge seas 'once existed on Mars'

[Ian David]

Source: BBC News

US scientists have found further evidence that huge seas existed long ago on Mars.

A geological mapping project found sedimentary deposits in a region called Hellas Planitia which suggest a large sea once stood there.

The 2,000 km-wide, 8km-deep Hellas basin is a giant impact crater - the largest such structure on Mars.

The researchers say their data support a lake between 4.5 and 3.5 billion years ago.

Some scientists believe that conditions on Mars were more favourable for the evolution of life at this time than they were on Earth.

"This mapping makes geologic interpretations consistent with previous studies, and constrains the timing of these putative lakes to the early-middle Noachian period on Mars," said Dr Leslie Bleamaster, research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson.


The Hellas basin is the largest impact structure on Mars

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science_and_environment/10264182.stm

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See also:

Existence of historic lakes on Mars confirmed
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=228x67640

[xchrom]

1. oooh cool! nt

[yava]

9. looks like the future of our planet

unless we change course

[Mimosa]

10. ^ Post of the day?^ n/t

[E-Z-B]

11. Only if we ever lose our magnetic field and the sun's solar flares strip away our atmosphere

[Javaman]

12. Which will eventually happen, but...

not for a few billion years.

[Dreamer Tatum]

22. You mean, get farther from the Sun? We'll get right on that. nt

[IndianaJoe]

2. Gasp! Dan Quayle was right!

"Mars is essentially in the same orbit... Mars is somewhat the same distance from the Sun, which is very important. We have seen pictures where there are canals, we believe, and water. If there is water, that means there is oxygen. If oxygen, that means we can breathe."
-- Vice President Dan Quayle, 8/11/89 (reported in Esquire, 8/92)

[liberation]

6. Indeed, it is almost the same except totally different...

[Javaman]

13. He had to been dropped on his head as a child. nt

[Matariki]

3. Until the Martians began deep water drilling...

[Dont_Bogart_the_Pretzel]

15. +1

:hi:

[burnsei sensei]

19. +1

Ah, an aggressive people, were they not?

[ProgressiveVictory]

4. this is an awesome discovery!!

[undeterred]

5. I hope the Martians didn't drill for oil...

[Xithras]

7. It would be nice if Mars DID have oil.

The planet could really use some greenhouse gasses.

It won't have it though. Mars may have had water and microbial life at one point, but it's extremely unlikely that it existed in enough abundance to generate the amount of organic matter needed for the formation of large petroleum deposits. There MIGHT be small pockets of it, and possibly even small coal layers here and there, if life did exist for an extended period of time, but their formation on Earth required the presence of full blown swamps and riverine habitats, and not just some microbes and small single celled organisms.

Most of the terraforming proposals for Mars hinge on the idea of dumping massive amounts of greenhouse gasses into the Martian atmosphere.

[Statistical]

20. Maybe that is how they went extinct....

looking for oil that simply could not be there. :)

[undeterred]

23. Someday some alien is going to be looking at Earth

saying: "There used to be life there... I wonder what happened."

[wordpix]

8. sure looks like it could hold a sea

[Uncle Joe]

14. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, Ian David.

[Catshrink]

16. BP destroyed them too, eh?

You bastids!

[Desertrose]

17. I was gonna ask if it was covered with oil....n/t

[burnsei sensei]

18. Fascinating.

Let's see to it that we're not making the same observation about the Gulf of Mexico in a year.

[thereismore]

21. Suggestive. What are the colors? nt

[MilesColtrane]

24. Now, thanks to Xzaxgar Petroleum, it's a lifeless husk.