By: Dave Mosher

SPACE.com Wed Jun 13, 1:45 PM ET

Since 1991, planetary scientists have floated the idea that Mars once harbored vast oceans that covered roughly one-third of the planet. Two long shore-like lips of rock in the planet's northern hemisphere were thought to be the best evidence, but experts argued that they were too "hilly" to describe the smooth edges of ancient oceans.

The view just changed dramatically with a surprisingly simple breakthrough.

The once-flat shorelines were disfigured by a massive toppling over of the planet, scientists announced today. The warping of the Martian rock has hidden clear evidence of the oceans, which in any case have been gone for at least 2 billion years.

"This really confirms that there was an ocean on Mars," said Mark Richards, a planetary scientist at the University of California at Berkeley and co-author of the study, which is detailed in the June 14 issue of the journal Nature.

Twin shores

Two major shorelines exist on Mars, each thousands of miles long--one remaining from the older Arabia Ocean, and another from the younger Deuteronilus Ocean, said study co-author Taylor Perron of UC Berkeley.

"The Arabia would have contained two to three times the volume of water than in the ice that covers Antarctica," Perron told SPACE.com.

Somewhere along the way to toppling over 50 degrees to the north, Mars probably lost some of its water, leaving the Deuteronilus Ocean's shoreline exposed. "The volume of water was too large to simply evaporate into space, so we think there is still some subterranean reservoirs on Mars," Perron said.

The remaining sea would have been located in the same lowland plain as the Arabia Ocean, but almost 40 degrees to the north.

Unstable spin

As a planet spins, the heaviest things tend to shift towards the equator, where they are most stable. Earth, too, has a bulge at its equator. The volcanic Tharsis region of Mars, a vast raised area along Mars' equator, is evidence for how this works.

"This is the reason why this discovery packs extra punch," Perron said. More than a billion years ago, he explained, something happened in the way mass was distributed on Mars to cause the imbalanced portion to shift toward the equator-and allow the vast shores of the Martian oceans to warp.

"We found evidence of the path the shift would have to have occurred, and it matches with the deformation of the shorelines," Perron said.

Elastic surface

Near the equator, the surface of a planet stays in a relatively flattened bulge under the pressure of centripetal forces. But outside of the equator, the rock behaves elastically and often bunches up, like the surface of a deflating balloon. Perron and his team reasoned that the oceanic shorelines were once near the equator, but warped into hilly up-and-down elevations of rock as they move towards the north with the tilting planet.

"On planets like Mars and Earth that have an outer shell ... that behaves elastically, the solid surface will deform," Richards said.

By calculating the deformation, which occurs in a predictable way, the planetary research team found the ridges had to have once been flat, like ocean shorelines.

"This is a beautiful result that Taylor [Perron] got," Richards said. "The mere fact that you can explain a good fraction of the information about the shorelines with such a simple model is just amazing. It's something I never would have guessed at the outset."

Perron and his colleagues aren't certain what caused the toppling of the planet, but they think forces beneath the surface are to blame. "There could have been a massive change in the distribution of mantle," Perron said, "which would have caused the planet to shift into its current position."

See page for links to more info:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20070613/sc_space/mysterysolvedmarshadlargeoceans




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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

cool!


thx for the good read!

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Scorpions - Wind Of Change

cool!
thx for the good read!

You're welcome! :)

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Cool!

Thnx for the good read MrGray!

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Scorpions - Wind Of Change

Thank you Mr Gray
Good find.

Makes one wonder if Mars was hit by a "very large" asteroid in the past. This would upset the natural revolution cycle enough to displace vast quantities of matter and produce enough heat to turn a reasonable amount of water into steam and blow it into space, the consequence would have been a drastic lowering of pressure in the atmosphere and so the remaing oceans would have slowly boiled off and been lost to space over a few hundred/thousand years.

It will be very interesting to see if there are underground caverns of water on mars, (they would have to be very deep and frozen or else they would also have boiled off some time in the past. perhaps some mining operation might be required...)


We need some ai robotic tools up there...

LOL@asking if Misfit might be from Mars.

OK, why must there be lightening within an atmosphere?

More importantly, if memory serves me correctly, yes, lightening plays a part in the formation of amino acids. But aren't there several other factors to consider in that formation?

Anyway, that's not rambling. Haven't these ideas been heard before?

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Did someone say mars has large oranges?

Unstable spin

As a planet spins, the heaviest things tend to shift towards the equator, where they are most stable. Earth, too, has a bulge at its equator. The volcanic Tharsis region of Mars, a vast raised area along Mars' equator, is evidence for how this works.

"This is the reason why this discovery packs extra punch," Perron said. More than a billion years ago, he explained, something happened in the way mass was distributed on Mars to cause the imbalanced portion to shift toward the equator-and allow the vast shores of the Martian oceans to warp.

In the case of earth our 'wobble' is to some degree controlled by the mass of our moon.

Unless there was some major impact on the martian surface is there any evidence of any extreem gravitational forces that could have altered Mar's axis a billion years ago?

From what I see water (or fluidic elements) are heavily influenced by gravity regardless of atmosphere (given they could actually be the atmosphere)...


Where do I buy these large oranges from mars?

cool!
thx for the good read!

You're welcome! :)

Just so everyone knows, MrGray and I had both found the same article and posted it in separate forums. Apparently, the two threads were merged. Cool.

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Capitalize on this good fortune, one word can bring you round ... changes.

Awesome discovery. I have high hopes that the Phoenix Mars Mission is going to be "the one" to change history by finding evidence of past, or even present, life. Hope everyone got a chance to "sign" Phoenix. Kinda cool having your name going to Mars. Girlfriend and I are listed together.

CR wrote:

Now for the question I'll never get an answer to in my life time: Did life on mars seed life on earth by way of meteorite? Did life on mars actually start life on earth? Is Misfit an alien from mars?? LOL! :)

i think its an interesting question to think about, to wonder if our life started on mars and got transferred to earth. but, i can't help to think: if life started that way on mars then it could have just as easily originated on earth in that way. i think its more likely, and more interesting, that life originated on mars and earth independently at similar times. only, tragically the development of life on mars was terminated too soon to evolve complex organisms. Oh how great would it have been had mars been stable, and we'd potentially have had a neighbor species!

CR wrote:

Now for the question I'll never get an answer to in my life time: Did life on mars seed life on earth by way of meteorite? Did life on mars actually start life on earth? Is Misfit an alien from mars?? LOL! :)

i think its an interesting question to think about, to wonder if our life started on mars and got transferred to earth. but, i can't help to think: if life started that way on mars then it could have just as easily originated on earth in that way. i think its more likely, and more interesting, that life originated on mars and earth independently at similar times. only, tragically the development of life on mars was terminated too soon to evolve complex organisms. Oh how great would it have been had mars been stable, and we'd potentially have had a neighbor species!

so... where did the oceans go...


hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ... it so happens that the thrid planet from the sun has an unnatural excess of water on its surface..??????

comments??

Awesome discovery. I have high hopes that the Phoenix Mars Mission is going to be "the one" to change history by finding evidence of past, or even present, life. Hope everyone got a chance to "sign" Phoenix. Kinda cool having your name going to Mars. Girlfriend and I are listed together.

Finding evidence would be ideal. :)

Since I can't go, why not a name? Sort of like saying, "Good luck to you all there, my dream would have been to do the same".

Which reminds me, I think it's almost time to renew my membership in The Planetary Society. (Was that even a requirement? I don't remember it being one).

Oh yah, that is so romantic, I bet she was happy.

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Which reminds me, I think it's almost time to renew my membership in The Planetary Society. (Was that even a requirement? I don't remember it being one).

No requirement, but The Planetary Society funded s@h to get things going. They are also very active to promote Astronomy & Science despite the self-serving luddite blinkeredness of various Senators.

In my opinion, well worthwhile, and very needed!

Keep searchin',
Martin

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