Research indicates ancient Mars had minimal groundwater recharge, vastly differing from Earth’s water dynamics, affecting our understanding of its climate and aiding future Mars missions.
Mars was once a wet world. The geological record of the Red Planet shows evidence for water flowing on the surface – from river deltas to valleys carved by massive flash floods.
But a new study shows that no matter how much rainfall fell on the surface of ancient Mars, very little of it seeped into an aquifer in the planet’s southern highlands.
A graduate student at The University of Texas at Austin made the discovery by modeling groundwater recharge dynamics for the aquifer using a range of methods – from computer models to simple back-of-the-envelope calculations.
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