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Ronald R. Victor (Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at Austin), Natalie B. York (Space Sciences Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley)

Received March 18, 1974; revised October 6, 1974.

ABSTRACT:

The large Martian channels, especially Kasei, Ares, Tiu, Simud and Mangala Valles, show morphological features strikingly similar to those of ‘Channeled Scabland.’ Features in the overall pattern include the great size, regional anastomosis, and low sinuosity of the channels. Erosional features are streamlined hills, longitudinal grooves, inner channel cataracts, scour upstream of flow obstacles, and perhaps marginal cataracts and butte and basin topography. Depositional features are bar complexes in expanding reaches and perhaps pendant bars and alcove bars.

Scabland erosion takes place in exceedingly deep, swift floodwater acting on closely jointed bedrock as a hydrodynamic consequence of secondary flow phenomena, including various forms of macro-turbulent vortices and flow separations. If the analogy to the Channeled Scablands is correct, floods involving water discharges of millions of cubic meters per second and peak flow velocities of tens of meters per second, but lasting perhaps no more than a few days, have occurred on Mars …

FromThe Bulletin of Geophysical Research, vol. 23, pp. 27–41 (1974). Copyright 1974 by Academia Press, Inc.; all rights reserved.