Dune Fossils on Mars Provide Clues to the Red planet's Climate History

According to foreign media BGR reports, images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show that there are some special sand dunes on Mars, which are like time capsules. Researchers say that these dunes are likely to be the same as dunes about 1 billion years ago. Studying these dunes can reveal a lot about the climate history of this planet. According to scientists who study dunes, these dunes were formed about 1 billion years ago. A new paper focusing on sand dunes has just been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets. Obviously, dune fossils like this are quite rare, especially with this extreme level of detail, which gives scientists the opportunity to study what this region of Mars looked like in the past 1 billion years ago. "We discovered and mapped extensive dune fields in the Marineris Valley Canyon, which show clear evidence of petrification and burial. Due to continuous erosion and tectonics, this degree of preservation is rare for terrestrial dunes," the Matthew Chojnacki, the lead author of the study, said in a statement. "Based on the relationship between sand dune deposits and other geological units and the rate of modern erosion, we estimate that these dunes are about 1 billion years old. Due to their size and spatial arrangement, they are not much different from modern equivalents. We believe that climate and atmosphere The pressure is similar to contemporary Mars."

The incredible thing about these dunes is that they act as a kind of window through time. Based on their size, shape, and other characteristics, scientists can learn more about the climate and other environmental factors that formed them. "The continuous reshaping of the water and structure of the Earth's surface is currently not a factor on Mars, so there is an opportunity to learn from the geological record of the Red Planet," Chojnacki explained. "The ancient dune fields found in Valles Marineris, with their complex and diverse geomorphological shapes, degree of preservation and background, reveal the richness of regional geology. These results tell us that during most of the modern history of Mars, they have occurred. Wind-driven sand transportation, sedimentation and petrification have shown that the geomorphic evolution there is very different from that of the earth."