Sculpting of Martian brain terrain reveals the drying of ancient Mars
Fuente:
arXiv
Saved in:
| Main Authors: | , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Preprint |
| Published: |
2026
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | |
| Tags: |
Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
|
| _version_ | 1866915907733815296 |
|---|---|
| author | Zhang, Shenyi Zhang, Lei Ke, Yutian Zhang, Jinhai |
| author_facet | Zhang, Shenyi Zhang, Lei Ke, Yutian Zhang, Jinhai |
| contents | The Martian brain terrain (MBT), characterized by its unique brain-like morphology, is a potential geological archive for finding hints of paleoclimatic conditions during its formation period. The morphological similarity of MBT to self-organized patterned ground on Earth suggests a shared formation mechanism. However, the lack of quantitative descriptions and robust physical modeling of self-organized stone transport jointly limits the study of the thermal and aqueous conditions governing MBT's formation. Here we established a specialized quantitative system for extracting the morphological features of MBT, taking a typical region located in the northern Arabia Terra as an example, and then employed a numerical model to investigate its formation mechanisms. Our simulation results accurately replicate the observed morphology of MBT, matching its key geometric metrics with deviations <15%. Crucially, however, we find that the self-organized transport can solely produce relief <0.5 m, insufficient to explain the formation of MBT with average relief of 3.29 \pm 0.65 m. We attribute this discrepancy to sculpting driven by late-stage sublimation, constraining cumulative subsurface ice loss in this region to ~3 meters over the past ~3 Ma. These findings demonstrate that MBT's formation is a multi-stage process: initial patterning driven by freeze-thaw cycles implying liquid water followed by vertical sculpting via sublimation requiring a dry environment. This evolution provides physical evidence for the transition of the ancient Martian climate from a wetter period to a colder hyper-arid state. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2601_22606 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Sculpting of Martian brain terrain reveals the drying of ancient Mars Zhang, Shenyi Zhang, Lei Ke, Yutian Zhang, Jinhai Geophysics Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Computational Physics The Martian brain terrain (MBT), characterized by its unique brain-like morphology, is a potential geological archive for finding hints of paleoclimatic conditions during its formation period. The morphological similarity of MBT to self-organized patterned ground on Earth suggests a shared formation mechanism. However, the lack of quantitative descriptions and robust physical modeling of self-organized stone transport jointly limits the study of the thermal and aqueous conditions governing MBT's formation. Here we established a specialized quantitative system for extracting the morphological features of MBT, taking a typical region located in the northern Arabia Terra as an example, and then employed a numerical model to investigate its formation mechanisms. Our simulation results accurately replicate the observed morphology of MBT, matching its key geometric metrics with deviations <15%. Crucially, however, we find that the self-organized transport can solely produce relief <0.5 m, insufficient to explain the formation of MBT with average relief of 3.29 \pm 0.65 m. We attribute this discrepancy to sculpting driven by late-stage sublimation, constraining cumulative subsurface ice loss in this region to ~3 meters over the past ~3 Ma. These findings demonstrate that MBT's formation is a multi-stage process: initial patterning driven by freeze-thaw cycles implying liquid water followed by vertical sculpting via sublimation requiring a dry environment. This evolution provides physical evidence for the transition of the ancient Martian climate from a wetter period to a colder hyper-arid state. |
| title | Sculpting of Martian brain terrain reveals the drying of ancient Mars |
| topic | Geophysics Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Computational Physics |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.22606 |