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Periglacial Landscape Evolution at Lower Mid-Latitudes on Mars: The Thaumasia Highlands

This paper is available in a repository.
This paper is available in a repository.

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Abstract

We report on the detection of periglacial landforms at high mid-latitudes in the Thaumasia Highland (Mars) that are characterized by lobate to tongue-shaped flow and creep morphologies and which have a close resemblance to terrestrial landforms found in mountainous permafrost regions. It appears that pristine ice-related landforms are best described by small-scale protalus lobes, with few to no distinct impact craters at both HRSC and MOC NA scale. Exposure to solar insulation seems to control the distribution of rock glacier-like landforms, with a preferred occurrence on south- facing slopes. Older, less pristine lineated crater fills, which are commonly considered to represent landforms related to the viscous deformation of ice and debris, show, however, a less systematic distribution of flow directions. Both relatively young landforms are likely related to climatic variations on Mars orbital variations in its recent past and form the youngest witnesses of high obliquity.