Billions of years ago, there were large-scale floods on Mars: now its traces are hidden

Researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in collaboration with experts from Peking University, have discovered

evidence of the presence of layered subsurface in the Utopia Planitia basin on Mars. They studied what the subsurface consists of. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature.

Scientists have discovered that beneath the surface of the poolThere are at least two layers of material, neither of which is water. One was at a depth of approximately 10 to 30 meters, and the other was at a depth of 30 to 80 meters.

Nature (2022).
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05147-5

The radars that conventional Mars rovers are equipped withunable to distinguish between rock, ice, or lava in the rock. So scientists have been theoretically trying to explain the unusual layers beneath the Martian "soil." They suggest that the deeper, older layer formed when smaller rocks fell on larger ones during a flood about 3 billion years ago.

The flood appears to have been rapid and intenseenough energy to carry large rocks. The researchers suggest that the second layer may have formed in a similar way - as a result of a flood about 1.6 billion years ago. The authors of the discovery noted that previous studies have shown that there was a lot of glacial activity during this period. The scientists also found no evidence of volcanic activity that could have led to the creation of either layer.

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