Around 3.5 billion years ago — when basic life was just gaining a foothold on Earth — the Tharsis region on Mars was swamped with vast floods that scar the landscape to this day.
Mars wears its geological history like a badge of honor — ancient craters remain unchanged for hundreds of millions of years and long-extinct volcanoes look as if they were venting only yesterday. This is the nature of Mars’ thin, cold atmosphere; erosional processes that rapidly delete Earth’s geological history are largely absent on the Red Planet, creating a smorgasbord of features that provide planetary scientists with an open book on Mars’ ancient past.
In this latest observation from the European Mars Express mission, a flood of biblical proportions has been captured in all its glory. But this flood didn’t happen recently, this flood engulfed a vast plain to the north of the famous Valles Marineris region billions of years ago.
It is believed that a series of volcanic eruptions and tectonic upheavals in the Tharsis region caused several massive groundwater releases from Echus Chasma, a collection of valleys some 100 kilometers (62 miles) long and up to 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) deep. These powerful bursts of water carved vast outflow channels into the adjacent Lunae Planum, contributing to the formation of the Kasei Valles outflow channels, releasing water into the vast Chryse Planitia plains which acted as a “sink.” Smaller “dendritic” channels can be seen throughout the plain, indicating that there were likely many episodic bursts of water flooding the region.
These floods happened between 3.4 to 3.6 billion years ago, less than a billion years after the most basic lifeforms started to appear on Earth (a period of time known as the Paleoarchean era).
In the middle of what was likely a powerful, vast and turbulent flows of water is Worcester Crater that was created before the Tharsis floods and, though its crater rim stands to this day and retains its shape, it was obviously affected by the flow of water, with a “tail” of sediment downstream.
Also of note are smaller “fresh” craters that would have appeared long after the flooding took place, excavating the otherwise smooth outflow channels. These younger craters have tails that seem to be pointed in the opposite direction of the flow of water. These tails weren’t caused by the flow of water, but by the prevailing wind direction.
From orbital observations by our armada of Mars missions, it is well known that these channels contain clays and other minerals associated with the long-term presence of water. Although the Red Planet is now a very dry place, as these beautiful Mars Express images show, this certainly hasn’t always been the case.
