Vast ocean existed on Mars: study

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The new research, published in the journal Nature Geoscience, provides the best evidence yet that an enormous ocean once existed on Mars. Scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder, US, based their findings on a study of what appear to be ancient river delta deposits and valley networks. They identified 52 delta regions fed by numerous river-like systems. All lay at about the same height, suggesting that they marked the shoreline edge of a huge river-fed ocean.

The researchers, led by Dr Gaetano Di Achille and Professor Brian Hynek, believe the ocean covered around 36% of the planet and contained 30 million cubic miles of water. They wrote: "We suggest that the level reconstructed from the analysis of the deltaic deposits may represent the contact of a vast ocean covering the northern hemisphere of Mars around 3.5 billion years ago..

"Our findings lend credence to the hypothesis that an ocean formed on early Mars as part of a global and active hydrosphere."

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Full story on Yahoo...
uk.news.yahoo.com...

I think most people think it's a given anyway, i do, looking at topology from more recent telemetries especially it's like instinctive when lookng at the sphere, but it's nice to have supporting science to hypotheses.

Peace.

This article in the Daily Mail has a picture of how it might have looked:
www.dailymail.co.uk...



[edit on 14-6-2010 by berenike]

Isn't Mars the only planet in the solar system to have evidence of a flood of biblical proportions? Or am I way off?

Its strange how some go oh hum," there were once oceans on Mars",but few ask "if underwater life existed, did it evolve to land forms?" and did it have the intelligence to migrate underground as Mars faced catastrophe?
My personal belief is life would go underground as opposed to space migration in tghe face of extinction.
Or perhaps a combination of both?

Originally posted by bigbomb456
Isn't Mars the only planet in the solar system to have evidence of a flood of biblical proportions? Or am I way off?

No, you are correct.

See the second post in this old lost-in-the-shuffle thread if interested.