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Geology of Mars after the ﬁrst 40 years of exploration
Article in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics · July 2010

DOI: 10.1088/1674-4527/10/7/003
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Research in Astron. Astrophys. 20XX Vol. X No. XX, 000–000
Research in
http://www.raa-journal.org http://www.iop.org/journals/raa Astronomy and
Astrophysics
Geology of Mars after the first 40 years of exploration
A. P. Rossi1 and S. van Gasselt2

1
International Space Science Institute, CH-3012, Hallerstrasse 6, Bern, Switzerland;
[email protected]
2
Institut für Geologische Wissenschaften, Freie Universität Berlin
Received [year] [month] [day]; accepted [year] [month] [day]
Abstract The knowledge on Martian Geology has enormously increased in last 40 years.
Several missions orbiting or roving Mars revolutionized our understanding of its evolution
and geological features, in several ways similar to Earth, but extremely different in many
respects. The impressive dichotomy between the 2 Martian hemispheres is most likely
linked to its impact cratering history, rather than internal dynamics such as on Earth.
Mars volcanism has been extensive, very long-lived and rather constant in its setting.
Water has been available in large quantities in the far past of Mars, when a magnetic field
and more vigorous tectonics were active. Exogenic forces have been shaping Martian
landscapes and have led to a plethora of landscapes shaped by wind, water and ice. Mars’
dynamical behavior continues on, with its climatic variation affecting climate and geology
until very recent times. This paper tries to summarize major highlights in Mars Geology,
and points to deeper and more extensive sources of important scientific contributions and
future exploration.
Key words: planets and satellites: Mars – Geology – Surface Processes – Interior
Processes
Contents
1 Introduction 2
1.1 Mars vs. Earth - A General Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.1 Timing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.1.2 Physical Properties . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
1.2 A Brief History of Mars Exploration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
2 Cratering 9
2.1 Chronology and Stratigraphy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
2.2 Crater morphology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
3 Endogenic Processes 12
3.1 Volcanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
3.2 Tectonism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4 Exogenic Processes 17
4.1 Sedimentation and Erosion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
4.2 Ice(s) on Mars . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
2 A. P. Rossi, & S. van Gasselt
5 Open issues, Future prospects and Conclusions 22
1 INTRODUCTION
Although only half of the size of the Earth (Fig. 1), Mars has a remarkably rich and complex preserved
geological record covering a time span possibly larger than on Earth, where it was irreversibly lost due
to the continuous crustal recycling operated by terrestrial Plate Tectonics (e.g. Hamilton, 2007).
Our knowledge on the Geology of Mars is ramping up steeply, but most of what we know has its
roots in the planetary exploration of the ’60s and ’70s. The largest revolution in our knowledge of Mars
since telescopic observations is constituted by the twin Viking missions (e.g. Arvidson et al., 1980;
Carr, 1987), although telescopic campaigns were still widely used in the ’90s (Parker et al., 1999). In
particular the knowledge about the global geology and stratigraphy took tremendous benefit from the
then enormous set of data collected by Viking (e.g. Tanaka, 1986). During the post-Viking era, in the
’80s and the ’90 of our last century, this relatively limited dataset, analyzed and exploited for several
years produced long-standing results (Kieffer and Jakosky, 1993) in all geological and neighbouring
disciplines. Most of them have remarkably resisted decades of newer data, some other less. Nowadays,
after some 10 more successful missions, we stand on an enormous set of data to be digested.
Combined results from Viking and subsequent missions concurred to update our knowledge on
Mars Geology (e.g. Carr, 2006; Bell, 2008; Kargel, 2004). In this respect, also the study of terrestrial
analogues, in terms of landforms and processes, helped our understanding of the Geology on Mars
(Chapman, 2007), providing constraints on formation conditions of several landforms and deposits.
We are nowadays approaching field-like scale observations of Mars with both orbital and rover
(Squyres et al., 2004a,b) platforms (Fig. 2), but many questions remain still unanswered, such as the
actual amount and timing of past liquid water on and below the surface, the exact mechanisms of
alteration of rocks, the nature of extensive layered deposits in Valles Marineris (e.g. Lucchitta et al.,
1992) and elsewhere (e.g. Hynek and Phillips, 2008), and the actual composition and exact variability
of Martian crust, just to name a few. Nevertheless, enormous progress has been reached in the field
of hyperspectral analysis and identification of local mineralogy from orbit (e.g. Bibring et al., 2005;
Bibring et al., 2006; Mustard et al., 2005, 2008; Gendrin et al., 2005; Bibring and Langevin, 2008)
During the upcoming decades we will likely see a growingly complex and ambitious set of Mars
exploration missions. The analysis of the wealth of data acquired in the last ten years or so contains itself
potential revolutions in our understanding of Mars Geology and planetary evolution. New paradigms
will have the chance to be elaborated and the understanding of ancient Mars, still potentially accessible,
will also be an important cornerstone for the understanding of early Earth.
The upcoming chapters will briefly highlight several issues with respect to Geology. Technical terms
will be marked in this text as italic and can be looked up in any general Earth Science dictionary, such
as (McGraw-Hill, 2003; Bates and Jackson, 1984; Kusky, 2005). Mars toponyms can be located using
the IAU Planetary Nomenclature Gazetteer (IAU-USGS, 2010).
1.1 Mars vs. Earth - A General Overview
1.1.1 Timing
The first striking global characteristic of Mars is its hemispheric dichotomy (Watters et al., 2007),
which divides a low-lying northern hemisphere, apparently depleted of craters, from a high south-
ern one, with clear impact craters and basins (Fig. 3). The geological Eras on Mars (e.g.
Neukum et al., 2001; Hartmann and Neukum, 2001) (Fig. 4) are obviously much coarser than on Earth
(Walker and Geissman, 2009) and comprise: Noachian (4.65 − 3.7 Gyr), Hesperian (3.7 − 3.0 Gyr )
and Amazonian ( 3.0 Gyr-present). During its 4.6 Gyr history Mars experienced large-scale volcanism
and the lack of plate tectonics or other means to recycle its lithosphere mantained its volcanic record al-
most intact, including colossal volcanic edifices and extensive flood basalts (e.g. McEwen et al., 1999).
With peaks in Noachian and Hesperian (Greeley and Spudis, 1981; Neukum et al., 2004), Martian vol-
Mars Geology after 40 years 3
Fig. 1 Full disks compared at the same scale: A. Earth, land masses, oceans and clouds are
visible (NASA Apollo 17 picture, 1972) B. Mars, high-altitude CO2 ice clouds are visible
(ESA Rosetta Osiris image, 2007) C. Moon (NASA Clementine UVIS mosaic, 1994).
canism was possibly active until few tens of million years ago (Neukum et al., 2004). Tectonic defor-
mation was also intimately associated with the robust volcanism of Mars (e.g. Chicarro et al., 1985;
Banerdt et al., 1992; Mège and Masson, 1996a) possibly until relatively recent times too, in some cases
(Knapmeyer et al., 2006). A prominent Earth-like features visible at large scale on Mars are channels
and valleys carved by running water in the earlier phases of Mars’ geological history, such as the so-
called outflow channels (e.g. Baker, 2001; Nelson and Greeley, 1999; Fairén et al., 2003). Until very
recently the evidence of past water-related activities was primarily geomorphological in nature. Since
less than a decade, hyperspectral compositional data are supporting the idea of an ancient water-rich
Mars (Baker et al., 1991), while opening a new set of questions on how and when (e.g. Bibring et al.,
2005; Bibring et al., 2006; Mustard et al., 2005; Bibring and Langevin, 2008) water-related alteration of
rocks happened.
The actual temporal association of geological events (e.g. volcanic phases vs. outflow channel
development) is described in detail by various authors (e.g. Head, 2007; Carr, 2006; Tanaka, 1986;
Neukum et al., 2004).
1.1.2 Physical Properties
Mars’ orbit is slightly elliptical with a semi-major axis of 1.52 AU and a distance of 1.381 AU at
perihelion and 1.666 AU at aphelion. Similar to the Earth, the rotational spin axis is tilted by 25.19◦
(Earth’s tilt is currently 23.44◦ ) and is undergoing significant oscillations between 15◦ to 35◦ with a
period of 105 years (Ward, 1992; Kieffer and Zent, 1992; Laskar et al., 2004). Obliquities as high as
60◦ lead to a higher solar flux in polar areas and as a consequence a redeposition of polar ice to mid
latitudes. Mars’ orbital eccentrcity is around 0.093 and its orbit is inclined by 1.85◦ with respect to the
ecliptic leading to more pronounced seasons when compared to the Earth with long and cold southern
hemispheric winters (i.e. pronounced northern-hemispheric summers of 183 Earth days) and shorter and
warmer southern hemispheric summers (158 Earth days). Eeccentricity values can vary considerably and
take values between 0.0 to 0.15 (Laskar et al., 2004). Martian seasons are not given in months but as
aerocentric longitudes of the Sun in degrees (solar longitude, LS ). Northern hemispheric spring (vernal
equinox) starts at LS = 0◦ corresponding to the beginning of the southern hemispheric fall. Northern
summer solstice occurs at LS = 90◦ corresponding to winter on the southern hemisphere. A Mars day
(termed sol) is comparable to the duration of an Earth’s day with 24h39m, due to its orbit, however, its
rotational period is 687 days (or 669 sols) which corresponds to 1.88 Earth years.
Mars has a size between that of Earth and the Moon with a mean radius of 3389.5±0.2 km, i.e., an
equatorial axis of 3396.19±0.1 km and a polar axis of 3376.2±0.1 km, resulting in a slight polar flatten-
ing of 1:169.89 (Seidelmann et al., 2002) as mainly elaborated through the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter
(MOLA) instrument onboard Mars Global Surveyor and occultation measurements (Esposito et al.,
1992; Smith et al., 1999, 2001). The surface area of Mars is 149×106 km2 which roughly corresponds
to the surface area covered by land masses on the Earth. Mars’ surface gravity has a value of 3.711 m/s2
and is thus in between that of Earth (9.81 m/s2 ) and Earth’s moon (1.63 m/s2 ).
As for the Earth, Mars’ interior is differentiated into a crust of basaltic composition and variable
thickness of 5-100 km with a greater thickness in the southern hemisphere, a mantle and a core with
a radius of roughly 1300-1500 km. The absence of a magnetic field leads to the conclusion that Mars’
core is solid today. Mars is considered to be a one-plate planet showing no indication of plate tectonics
(Longhi et al., 1992; Stevenson, 2001; Zuber, 2001). The global physiography is characterized by a
pronounced global dichotomy with smooth northern lowland plains and a heavily-cratered southern
hemipshere. The dichotomy boundary is marked by an escarpment which is well pronounced in mid-
longitudes and less well-developed in the region of the Tharsis volcanic rise and the eastern Chryse
Planitia region. Topographically, Mars shows a wide height range from -7550 m as the deepest point
located in the Hellas Planitia impact basin in the eastern hemisphere to 22640 m at the top of Olympus
Mons, the largest volcano in the solar system (Seidelmann et al., 2002). Due to the absence of sea
level, these values depend on the artificial reference body used so that values as high as 29 km for the
highest point and -8.2 km for the deepest are found frequently when elevations are referenced to the
equipotential surface of the truncated sphere with r=3396 km.
Mars atmosphere is made up of carbon dioxide mainly, with 95% carbon dioxide, 3% nitrogen,
1.6% argon, and contains traces of oxygen and water. The pressure at the surface ranges from 6.9 to
9 mbar with peak values of 14 mbar at the deepest elevation and 0.7 mbar at the top of Olympus
Mons (Fanale et al., 1992; Zurek, 1992; Carr, 2006). Surface pressure vary considerably due to seasonal
condensation of CO2 at the poles where up to 25% of the atmosphere resublimates. Due to the thin
atmosphere, diurnal surface temperatures range from polar -150 K to 240 K but they can reach values
as high as 300 K at maximum (Kieffer et al., 1977). At these temperature and surface pressure ranges,
CO2 easily sublimates during late fall/winter at the poles and resublimates during spring and summer
as the tripel point of carbon dioxide is located at T=216.55 K/5.2 bar. This also indicates that liquid
CO2 cannot be stable under Martian conditions. At the given pressure ranges, liquid water is in general
only stable in a very small window and only transiently but local atmospheric effects can increase the
stabilty range (James et al., 1992; Jakosky and Haberle, 1992; Jakosky and Phillips, 2001; Leovy, 2001;
Haberle et al., 2001; Carr, 2006).
Mars has two satellites called Phobos and Deimos that were both discovered in 1877 by A. Hall
and which are considered to be captured asteroids from the main belt and are spectrally similar to
C- or D-type asteroids (Batson et al., 1992; Thomas et al., 1992b). Phobos is described by a triaxial
rotational ellipsoid with radii of 13.4 × 11.2 × 9.2 km (Seidelmann et al., 2002) and a mean density
of 1.887 g/cm3 . It has an slightly eccentric orbit (ε=0.0151) with a periapsis distance of 9034 km and
an apoapsis of 9517 km, and thus is located inside the Roche limit leading either to a breakup in the
future or to a collision with Mars. Its orbit is slightly inclined (1.09◦ ) with respect to Mars’ equator and
rotates around Mars in 7h39m. Due to its synchronous rotation it always shows the same face towards
the Martian surface. Deimos is smaller in size with radii of 7.5 × 6.1 × 5.2 km and its near circular orbit
has a semimajor axis of 23460 km. Phobos’ mean density is about 1.47 g/cm3 . it takes Deimos 1d6h on
its orbit to rotate around Mars.
1.2 A Brief History of Mars Exploration
The exploration of Mars can be roughly divided into three major periods. The first one is the pre-
spacecraft area characterized by naked-eye and telescopic observations starting in the early ages of
humankind - in a time when the appearance of the red planet was associated with war and disease
mainly. Scientific light was shed upon Mars exploration in the course of telescopic observations in the
beginning of the 17th century and culminated in the mid 20th century (Martin et al., 1992). During the
space race in the early 1960s to 1970s the second period of planetary exploration has begun and Mars
became a target of exploration by spacecraft with the major goal of reaching Mars by flyby at short
distance and to conduct environmental measurements and image the surface from a close approach
trajectory (Snyder and Moroz, 1992). Later goals targeted on orbiter and lander or rover missions. The
third period of exploration has recently begun and strives towards joint efforts to investigate the red
neighbor by multinational large-scale endeavors to pave the way for human exploration.
Contrasting to robotic missions to the Moon, mission and instrument designs must cope with totally
different requirements and start windows are limited to times when Mars and Earth are approaching each
other on their individual heliocentric orbits which occurs every two years. It was not until 1965 when
the US-Americans succeeded to send the Mariner 4 spacecraft to Mars and obtain the first 22 images of
the surface of Mars (Nicks, 1967) showing a barren wasteland filled with impact craters. Following the
Mariner 4 success, improved spacecraft design and new instrumentation led to thousands of TV camera
observations, IR/UV measurements and investigations of interplanetary environment in the course of
the Mariner 6-9 mission (Masursky et al., 1972). Despite its later launch, Mariner 9 arrived at Mars a
week earlier than the Soviet Mars 2 becoming the first Mars orbiting spacecraft ever. Although a global
dust storm hindered clear sight of the surface at the beginning of Mariner’s mapping phase, the mission
finally resulted in a global mapping of the surface of Mars with over 7300 images returned, including
the first detailed views of a diverse landscape consisting of large volcanoes, tectonism, traces of fluvial
activity, and polar caps. It also provided information on global dust storms and surface eolian activity,
the satellites Phobos and Deimos, the triaxial figure of Mars, and the rugged gravity field. With these
findings, Mariner 9 has expanded the view on Mars and showed its diverse and geologically complex
landscape (Sagan et al., 1972; McCauley et al., 1972; Hartmann and Raper, 1974; Veverka et al., 1974;
Born, 1974; Sagan and Fox, 1975). The science results have been published in a variety of special issues,
see Snyder and Moroz (1992), p. 117 and references therein.
The results of the Mariner 9 mission was even surpassed by the dual spacecraft mission Viking
1 and 2 launched in the second half of 1975. Beside a number of scientific instruments consisting of
a dual-head camera, IR spectrometer, and an atmospheric water detector unit, both orbiters carried a
lander module each, which allowed close-up investigations from the planet’s surface and in-situ mea-
surements of the regolith and atmosphere. Viking Orbiter 1 operated until summer 1980 after having
completed over 1400 orbits while Viking Orbiter 2 was shut off after having completed over 700 map-
ping orbits providing images down to a resolution of 150 m/pixel and as high as 7 m/px locally from a
300 km orbit with their TV camera systems. The Viking landers operated until 1980 (Viking 1 Lander)
and late 1982 (Viking 2 Lander) sending back 1400 images of the surface and massive data on the
properties of the atmosphere, the regolith and rocks. Volcanoes, lava plains, immense canyons, cratered
areas, wind-formed features, and evidence of surface water are apparent in the Orbiter images. The
planet appears to be divisible into two main regions, northern low plains and southern cratered high-
lands. Superimposed on these regions are the Tharsis and Elysium bulges, which are high-standing
volcanic areas, and Valles Marineris, a system of giant canyons near the equator. Measured tempera-
tures at the landing sites ranged from 150 to 250 K, with a variation over a given day of 35 to 50 K.
Seasonal dust storms, pressure changes, and transport of atmospheric gases between the polar caps were
Fig. 2 Geological observations on Earth and planetary exploration: A. Martian outcrop and
planetary remotely operated robotic geologist (NASA Mars Exploration Rover rendering
over real terrain imaged by MER Opportunity) B. Terrestrial Outcrop and geologist at work
(photo courtesy M. Pondrelli). The scale of both images is similar. C. Martian outcrop
photo-mosaic imaged by the NASA Mars Exploration Rover Opportunity (source: NASA
Photojournal no. PIA07110) D. Cretaceous Tidal sand waves from Ellesmere island (photo
courtey G. G. Ori).
observed. The biology experiment produced no evidence of life at either landing site (Fletcher et al.,
1976; Soffen, 1976b; Soffen and Snyder, 1976; Soffen, 1976a; Flinn, 1977; Soffen, 1977; Snyder, 1977;
Snyder and Moroz, 1992).
After a dormant phase in Mars exploration and several new attempts starting in 1988 with two
ill-fated Soviet Mars orbiters and Phobos lander missions and a failure of the US-American Mars
Observer in 1992, the US launched Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) in 1996 which was successfully
inserted into Mars orbit after some struggling with the solar panels during the aerobraking phase in
late 1998. Instruments were modified from their original Mars Observer design, and they provided
completely new insights into the geophysics in terms of shape and magnetic field, and the geology in
terms of rocks, mineralogy and landscape forming processes. The three most prominent instruments
carried by Mars Global Surveyor were the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter, MOLA (Smith et al., 1999),
the Mars Orbiter Cameras (Narrow-Angle, MOC-NA and Wide-Angle, MOC-WA) (Malin et al., 1992;
Malin and Edgett, 2001) and the Thermal Emission Spectrometer (TES) (Christensen et al., 1998). The
knowledge about the global shape, relief and topography of Mars we have today resulted from over 600
Myr. individual laser-pulse measurements by the MOLA instruments which have hit the ground and
were reflected to the MGS spacecraft. Unfortunately the instrument degraded and it had to be switched
of as early as 2001. At that time, the TES instrument conducted its measurements helping to under-
stand the regional-scale mineralogy and physical characteristics of the Martian high- and lowlands as
well as the polar caps. The camera instruments were designed to obtain a global image of Mars at a
focused scale of 231 m (MOC-WA) during a three-months geodesy phase. This view were similar to
the global map provided by the Viking camera experiments into which thousands of TV images at a
variety of resolutions were merged. Much of the southern hemisphere, however, was hidden under a
global dust storm event that prevented to obtain clear sight. The Narrow-Angle telescope (MOC-NA)
has provided tens of thousands highest-resolution image thumbnails with a scale down to 2 m per pixel
depicting unseen details of selected areas. In 2001, the Mars Odyssey spacecraft has joint MGS in or-
bit around Mars and is still operating today delivering daily multispectral image data of the Martian
surface via the Thermal Emission and Imagigng Spectrometer, THEMIS (Christensen et al., 2004). The
instrument is accompanied by a γ-Ray spectrometer combined with an High Energy Neutron detector
and Neutron spectrometers which helped to determine elemental abundances of surface material and
provided insights into the distribution of subsurface distribution of hydrogen indicating the possible
presence of large-scale water/ice reservoirs (Boynton et al., 2002; Mitrofanov et al., 2002). In 2006, the
MGS spacecraft was shut down after having operated for over ten years.
On the European side, the Mars Express spacecraft was launched in Baikonur in mid 2003 and
entered Mars orbit in early 2004 (Schmidt, 2003). Beside a variety of instruments Mars Express con-
sisted of a lander planned for touch-down in Isidis Planitia but which failed to send back any signals
(Pillinger and Sims, 1998; Sims et al., 1999; Bridges et al., 2003). A wealth of new data is still being
delivered today by the high-Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC, Neukum et al. (2004); Neukum et al.
(2004); Jaumann et al. (2007)) which not only images the surface at four wavelength bands but which
also allows to systematically derive high-resolution digital terrain models of the Martian surface, the in-
frared imaging spectrometer OMEGA (Bibring et al., 2004; Bibring et al., 2004) for the mineralogical
and molecular composition of the martian surface (Bibring et al., 2004), and a subsurface radar sound-
ing instrument (MARSIS, (Picardi et al., 2004)). The discovery of amounts of methane in the Martian
atmosphere by the Mars Express Planetary Fourier Spectrometer (PFS, (Formisano et al., 2004b,a)) has
led to joint NASA-ESA efforts in substantiating a Trace Gas Orbiter mission to Mars as part of the
ExoMars program and which is to be launched in 2016. The recent results of the ESA Mars Express
mission have been published in Witasse (2009).
Also in 2004, the US landed the two Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), one called Spirit which
touched down in Gusev Crater at the highland-lowland boundary, the other, called Opportunity, landed
on the antipodal side at the equator in Meridiani Planum. Both rovers were equipped with a plethora
of camera equipment and sophisticated surface-analyzing instruments to characterize the martian sur-
face environment and to search for evidence of traces of exobiological life (Squyres et al., 2004a,b).
Both rovers were designed for traverses of 100 m/day and their planned operating lifetime was 90 mar-
Fig. 3 A. Color-coded (blue=low, red=high) global shaded relief. 5-km spacing topo-
graphic contours are indicated. The so-called crustal dichotomy boundary is roughly
at the border between yellowish and greenish areas, where the zero datum contour is
located (NASA Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA)
data, Smith et al. (1999)). B. Simplified global geological map, indicating the three main
eras on Mars: Noachian (4.65 − 3.7 Gyr), Hesperian (3.7 − 3.0 Gyr) and Amazonian
( 3.0 Gyr−present) (data form Scott and Tanaka (1986); Greeley and Guest (1987)) C.
Radial magnetic field, measured by MGS Magnetometer. Intense crustal remnant mag-
netization in Mars’ ancient crust is causing strong (hundreds of nT) magnetic anomalies
Connerney et al. (1999).
tian days (sols). However, even today after 3 martian years, both rovers are still operating though in
January NASA decided to give up trying to free the sand-trapped Spirit rover and made it a stationary
research station. In contrast to its colleague Opprtunity, Spirit’s instrument could not detect significant
evidence for water in the past and the rocks analyzed in Gusev crater were mainly of basaltic, i.e. vol-
canic composition. Opportunity, despite its putatively less spectacular landing area, has come up with
plenty of results on altered rocks at the Martian surface indicating the presence of standing bodies of
water (Herkenhoff et al., 2004; Bell et al., 2004; Squyres et al., 2006).
Two years later, in mid-2006, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) arrived at Mars leading to an
overall number of four orbiters being active around Mars for the first time (Zurek and Smrekar, 2007).
The instrument suite of MRO consists of imaging and spectrometer as well as radar instruments for high-
est resolution mapping (Keszthelyi et al., 2008; Bell et al., 2009). The High-Resolution Imaging Science
Experiment (HiRISE. McEwen et al. (2007)) provides image data in three spectral bands with a resolu-
tion of up to 20-30 cm per pixel. The instrument is accompanied by a Context Imager (CTX, Malin et al.
(2007)) for mapping puroposes at a resolution of 5-6 m/px, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging
Spectrometer (CRISM, Murchie et al. (2007)) and the Shallow Radar (SHARAD, Seu et al. (2007))
instruments, which are higher resolution counterparts of the Mars Express OMEGA and MARSIS ex-
periments, respectively.
As part of the NASA Mars-Scout program,the Phoenix lander touched down in the martian north
polar latitudes in mid 2007. As a stationary mission, Phoenix searched the shallow subsurface for water
ice by using its wet-chemistry lab and detected (unconfirmed) traces of perchlorates (Hecht et al., 2009)
and precipitation of water ice (Smith et al., 2009). On 10 November 2008 the mision officially ended
due to energy shutdown in the course of the Martain north-polar winter.
2 CRATERING
2.1 Chronology and Stratigraphy
The stratigraphy of a planetary surface relates the inventory of rock surface units and the time at
which they were emplaced. There are two methods of obtaining absolute ages of rock surface units
of planetary bodies. One method links radiogenic isotope ages obtained for the Moon with crater
retention ages, i.e., relative ages, obtained through photogeological mapping (Hartmann et al., 1981;
Neukum and Ivanov, 1994; Hartmann and Neukum, 2001). In the other approach, models for rates for
formation of impact craters are employed and are transferred to other planetary objects considering
their specific environment, e.g., position and size, atmosphere, target properties (Neukum and Wise,
1976; Neukum and Hiller, 1981; Hartmann et al., 1981; Schmidt and Housen, 1987). For the terrestrial
planets in the Inner Solar System, surface ages can only be obtained by models of the crater forming
rates on each one of these bodies. Shapes of crater size-frequency distributions (SFDs) measured on the
terrestrial planets, including the Moon, were shown to be more or less similar which indicates (a) the
same family of bodies, preferentially asteroids (Main Belt, Near Earth asteroids, etc.) impacting these
planets, and (b) that time dependences of impact and cratering rates are similar to that for the Moon
(Neukum and Hiller, 1981; Neukum and Wise, 1976; Neukum and Ivanov, 1994; Neukum et al., 2001;
Strom et al., 2005).
The establishment of time scales for planetary bodies is based upon geological mapping as defined
by surface properties, e.g., morphologies, textures, spectral compositions, and as delineated by geologic
contacts and the superposition of individual units following basic stratigraphic principles (e.g. Steno,
1669). Relative ages can be derived by measuring the size-frequency distribution of impact craters that
have accumulated in a planet’s history through time which means that densely cratered surfaces are
older than less-densely cratered surface units. Thus, a geologic unit records the age as expressed by the
number of impact craters formed during meteoritic bombardment and the time a unit was exposed to the
projectile impact flux (Öpik, 1960; Baldwin, 1964; Hartmann, 1966; Neukum et al., 1975).
On Mars, impact cratering and plains volcanism played a dominant role in shaping the planet’s sur-
face through history and a variety of fluvial, glacial and eolian resurfacing processes have significantly
contributed to the morphologies that are observed today. The subdivision of the stratigraphic system
of Mars is based on marker horizons that are formed by plains-forming volcanism (Scott and Carr,
1978; Tanaka, 1986; Tanaka et al., 1992). Martian geologic time periods are from oldest to youngest:
the Noachian, the Hesperian, and the Amazonian and subdivisions into epochs (Scott and Carr, 1978;
Tanaka, 1986; Tanaka et al., 1992). For Mars, several chronology models were proposed and modified
in the course of the availability of new higher resolution data. Some of these efforts have been combined
lately to form the currently recent chronology model by Hartmann and Neukum (2001). Stratigraphic
boundaries (boundaries of time periods) are slightly different which has led to a Hartmann model (HM)
and a Neukum model (NM).
A Pre-Noachian period is informally established although the Noachian basis is not exposed; however,
radiometrically derived ages for the Martian meteorite ALH84001 with a crystallization age of 4.5
Gyr fits into this period (Mittlefehldt, 1994).
The Noachian Period is characterized by the oldest, densely cratered units in the highlands covering a
time range of older than 3.97 Gyr ago to 3.74 Gyr ago (Tanaka et al., 1992; Hartmann and Neukum,
2001). Its basis is defined by highland material of the Noachis Terra located between the Argyre
and Hellas Planitiae impact basins (Tanaka et al., 1992). The period is generally characterized by
Heavy Bombardment impacts, large scale volcanism peaking in the Tharsis region and the high-
land volcanic provinces, global tectonism and extensive valley network formation indicating fluvial
processes and a much denser atmosphere and warmer climate. The Late Noachian period spans
3.86 to 3.74 Gyr ago (Hartmann and Neukum, 2001), and is characterized by cratered plateau ma-
terial mainly. During that epoch, the crustal dichotomy (Watters et al., 2007) has been morpholog-
ically shaped. The Middle Noachian which covers the time span between 3.97 and 3.86 Gyr ago
(Hartmann and Neukum, 2001) is characterized by cratered highland terrain shaped by impact cra-
tering and the Argyre Planitia impact-basin event. During the late Early Noachian (>3.97 Gyr), the
Hellas and Isidis impact basins formed and global volcanism shaped the Tharsis region with the
formation of Paterae and Tholi, and the circum Hellas Planitia Highland volcanoes (Tanaka et al.,
1992). Recently, the Noachian period was characterized in terms of geochemical alteration by
Bibring et al. (2006), suggesting that formation of clay minerals, i.e., phyllosilicates, peaked during
the Early and Middle Noachian period.
The Hesperian Period is subdivided into the Early and Late Hesperian epochs spanning 3.74 Gyr to
2.9 Gyr ago and is characterized by the Hesperia Planum ridged plains material northeast of the
Hellas Planitia impact basin. Impact cratering rates were significantly lower when compared to the
Noachian period marking the end of the Heavy Bombardment period. Vanishing fluvial activity was
replaced by large-scale volcanism in the lowland units (Tanaka et al., 1992, , and references therein).
The disappearance of surface water has led to the assumption that most of the water is stored as per-
mafrost under the surface. Catastrophic release of water led to formation of outflow channels on
Mars in the circum-Chryse and eastern Hellas Planitia regions along with formation of the Martian
chaotic terrain and the Valles Marineris system (Tanaka et al., 1992). The Hesperian is also charac-
terized by extensive sulphate deposits (Bibring et al., 2006) primarily in the Valles Marineris region.
The Early Hesperian period covers the age range of 3.74 to 3.65 Gyr ago (Hartmann and Neukum,
2001) and is defined through the Hesperia Planum ridged plains units. The Late Hesperian, covering
the period between 3.65 Gyr to 2.9 Gyr ago (Hartmann and Neukum, 2001), is defined through the
plains material of the northern plains Vastitas Borealis unit.
The Amazonian period spans much of Martian history and starts 2.9 Gyr ago according to the Hartmann
model (HM), and up to 3.31 Gyr ago according to the Neukum chronology model (NM). The pe-
riod is generally defined through processes related to the northern lowland units and plains materials
and is characterized by extensive resurfacing processes. Late-stage volcanism and eolian resurfac-
ing shaped large areas of Mars and obliterated older units (Tanaka et al., 1992). The Amazonian
also shows late-stage outflow activity in the circum-Chryse Planitia area and an abundance of ice-
related surface processes predominantly near the global dichotomy escarpment and circum-Tharsis
volcanoes as well as the circum-Hellas/Argyre Planitiae regions. Surface alteration by formation of
Fig. 4 A.Martian chronology model, modified after Hartmann and Neukum (2001), with
indicated Martian eras. B. Example of a fresh simple bowl-shaped crater (MRO CTX P05
002830 1511 XI 28S133W) C. Complex central peak crater (MEX HRSC Nadir band from
orbit 411) D. Rampart crater. This kind of craters is typical of Mars (MEX HRSC orbit
5122, perspective view).
anhydrous ferric oxides, led to the planet’s characteristic red surface color (Bibring et al., 2006). The
basis of the Upper Amazonian Period is defined by flood plains material of the southern Elysium
Planitia area and starts 0.3 Gyr (HM) to 0.6 Gyr (NM) ago (Tanaka, 1986; Hartmann and Neukum,
2001). Characteristic materials of the Upper Amazonian are predominantly found near the season-
ally changing polar caps of Mars and in the young deposits and flow fields delineating the northern
hemispheric volcanoes. The Middle Amazonian is defined by the age of Amazonis Planitia lava
flow materials (Tanaka, 1986; Hartmann and Neukum, 2001) and covers the time range between
2.1 Gyr and 0.6 Gyr ago (NM) or 1.4 Gyr to 0.3 Gyr ago (HM). The basis for the Early Amazonian
period is set to 3.3 Gyr (NM) to 2.9 Gyr (HM) ago and is defined by the smooth plains materials of
Acidalia Planitia (Tanaka, 1986; Hartmann and Neukum, 2001).
For a concise overview of planetary and terrestrial stratigraphic systems see the text-book treatment
by Ogg et al. (2008).
2.2 Crater morphology
Mars exhibits one of the larges morphological variabilities of impact craters among the solid bod-
ies of the Solar System (Melosh, 1989; Strom et al., 1992) and thanks to MGS Mars Orbiter Laser
Altimeter (MOLA) data, a global morphometric characterization of Martian craters has been possible
(Garvin and Frawley; Garvin et al., 2003). Simple craters (Fig. 4B) (Pike, 1980) are bowl-shaped de-
pressions; they consitute the majority of small impact craters on Mars and their lower size observed size
range from orbit is metric or plurimetric. With increasing crater size, there is a transition towards com-
plex craters (Fig. 4C), which show larger and more diverse surface features, such as tangential faults,
terraces, and the presence of a central peak, which tends to evolve into a peak ring towards larger crater
sizes (Pike and Spudis, 1987; Strom et al., 1992) The transition between simple and complex craters on
Mars occurs at around 7-8 km of diameter (Garvin and Frawley; Garvin et al., 2003), while the upper
size limit for complex craters towards peak rings, is around 70 km on Mars. Peak-ring craters are formed
up to diameters of around 150 km, after that – for diameter larger than 300 km – multi-ring basins are
formed (Pike and Spudis, 1987). The Hellas Planitia impact basin located in the southern hemisphere
is one of the largest examples of impact basins on Mars (Fig. 3A). However, less visible large impact
craters and basins might be located in the northern plains (Fig. 3A) and are faintly visible in morphome-
tric analyses indicating their old age (Frey et al., 2002). The cause for the global dichotomy itself might
also be possibly impact-related (Marinova et al., 2008).
Both, simple and complex craters are common on other solid bodies in the Solar System (e.g.
Pike, 1980; Melosh, 1989; Moore et al., 2001), but one class of craters typical and very abundant on
Mars is constituted by rampart craters (Fig. 4D) (Strom et al., 1992) or, in general craters with Layered
Ejecta Structures (LES) (Barlow et al., 2000): they have peculiar lobate ejecta, with a variable degree of
geometrical and morphological complexity (Barlow and Perez, 2003; Komatsu et al., 2007) The exact
formation process for LES is not exactly constrained and two end-member interpretations exist: either
that impact-induced fluidization of volatiles in Mars’ upper crust is involved in the LES formation
(Barlow and Perez, 2003; Barlow, 2005), or that the interaction between the impact process and Martian
atmosphere is responsible for LES genesis (Barnouin-Jha and Schultz, 1998). The fact that Mars has had
a considerable amount of volatiles in its past and a much denser atmosphere makes both explanations
plausible; it is also possible that a combination of processes might be producing peculiar crater LES
(Komatsu et al., 2007).
Craters of any size or class can be found in a wide variety of modification stages, due to volcanic,
fluvial, glacial, periglacial and eolian processes (e.g. Craddock et al., 1997; Forsberg-Taylor et al., 2004;
Kuzmin et al., 2001; Kreslavsky and Head, 2006), possibly co-occurring. All this complexity explains
the variety in Martian crater morphologies (Fig. 3, 4).
3 ENDOGENIC PROCESSES
Our knowledge on Mars interior is very limited and is related mostly to what has been derived from
orbital data (e.g. Connerney et al., 1999; Spohn et al., 2001; Zuber et al., 2000) while no in situ geo-
physical observations are available thus far, but envisaged for the near future (Chicarro, 2009). Similarly
to other terrestrial planets, Mars has a largely metallic core, a mantle and a crust, whose absolute sizes
have some range of estimates in geophysical models (Spohn et al., 2001).
Global gravity (Zuber et al., 2000) and magnetic (Connerney et al., 1999) fields have been mea-
sured by different spacecraft and they depict a planet characterized by a generally rather thick
crust (Neumann et al., 2004) and rigid lithosphere (Phillips et al., 2008), apart from early in Martian
history (Hoogenboom and Smrekar, 2006). Currently, only strong crustal remnant magnetization
(Connerney et al., 1999; Langlais and Quesnel, 2008) is present in the southern highlands of Mars
(Fig. 3C), indicating an early Noachian magnetic dynamo, which produced a global magnetic field,
recorded in the ancient crust of the southern hemisphere of Mars (Fig. 3C). The exact mechanism for
the production of crustal magnetic anomalies is still debated (e.g. Nimmo, 2000; Fairen et al., 2002;
Scott and Fuller, 2004; Connerney et al., 2005). All these global geophysical features had a great and
Fig. 5 Global tectonism and volcamism on Mars in orthographic projection, divided

by hemisphere. A. Volcanic terrains (central longitude 0◦ ) B. Volcanic terrains (central
longitude 180◦ ) C. Compressional and extensional structures (central longitude 0◦ ) D.
Compressional and extensional structures (central longitude 180◦ ) (5A, 5B, data form
Scott and Tanaka (1986); Greeley and Guest (1987). 5C, 5D, data from Knapmeyer et al.
(2006)).
still not fully understood impact on Mars’ geological evolution (Stevenson, 2001; Watters et al., 2007),
including its progressive loss of atmosphere subsequently to the stagnation of the magnetic dynamo (e.g.
Barabash et al., 2007; Chassefiere and Leblanc, 2004; Roberts et al., 2009) and the evolution in space
and time of volcanism and tectonism (e.g. Solomon et al., 2005).
Fig. 6 Samples of volcanic landforms, deposits and terrains on Mars. A. Volcanic shields:
Olympus Mons (MEX HRSC nadir mosaic, courtesy A. Dumke) B. Highland Pateras:
Tyrrhena Patera, nearby Hellas Basin (MEX HRSC nadir from orbit 1920) C. Examples
of Tholus on Mars (MEX HRSC nadir from orbit 2983) D. Lava flow on the flanks of
Arsia Mons (MRO CTX P17 007484 1657 XN 14S117W) E. Pit chains over extensional
grabens (MRO CTX P17 007813 2132 XN 33N106W).
3.1 Volcanism
Questions on Mars’ volcanism range from its timing and volume to its emplacement styles
(Wilson and Head, 1994), compositional variations (Bibring and Langevin, 2008; Christensen et al.,
2003) and time and space variability (Greeley and Spudis, 1981; Neukum et al., 2004). Many of them
have been answered by past and current missions.
Mars has a very rich volcanic history (Greeley and Spudis, 1981) that dates back from Noachian up
to few million years ago (Neukum et al., 2004). In general Mars Volcanism has some basic dissimilari-
ties to Earth, mainly due to the lower gravity and lower atmospheric pressure,which determines features
such as: larger volcanic diapirs at shallow depth, more extensive lava flows, much larger volcanic edi-
fices and areal distribution of (finer) volcaniclastic deposits (Wilson and Head, 1994). The large size of
volcanic edifices on Mars in not only linked to lower gravity, but also to very long-lived mantle plumes
below them (Greeley and Spudis, 1981; Baker et al., 2007) and the largely horizontal immobility of the
Martian lithosphere over geological timescales (Zuber, 2001). This immobility is probably linked to the
lack of plate tectonics, at least during the latest and longest portion of its history.
The volcanic types on mars include large shield volcanoes (Fig. 6A) such as the ones of the
Tharsis province (Fig. 3A), and comparable to terrestrial basaltic shield volcanoes,the so-called high-
land Paterae (Williams et al., 2009) (Fig. 3B) that are considered to be ancient volcanoes where the
strong erosion of flanks suggests the interaction of magmatism with groundwater and an explosive
style of volcanism, and smaller volcanic constructs such as Tholi or Domes (e.g. Hauber et al., 2005)
(Fig. 3C). Extremely large areas on Mars are finally covered by lava flows of variable morphology, some
of which bear strong resemblance with lunar mare basalts (Greeley and Spudis, 1981; Head et al., 2001).
Moreover, volcano-water (e.g. Wilson and Head, 2004) and volcano-ice (e.g. Chapman and Tanaka) in-
teractions have been proposed to have happened during Martian geological history in different locations
and times.
Mars thus shows a volcanism with a variety of characteristics and landforms closer in complexity
to Earth rather than the Moon. Giant, long-lived mantle plumes provided the engine for the construction
of the colossal volcanic provinces, such as Tharsis (Baker et al., 2007), that we see now on Mars.
The resulting intrinsic complexity of time-space variability of Mars volcanism (Greeley and Spudis,
1981), including its apparent very recent age, at places (Neukum et al., 2004; Schumacher and Breuer,
2007) is linked to its internal dynamics (Wilson et al., 2001) which finally produced remarkably young
activity, up to about 5 million years (Neukum et al., 2004), for a planet whose more active phases date
back to billions of years.
On Mars, as on Earth, Volcanism is strongly associated with tectonic activity, especially with tec-
tonic extension: in fact dike swarms (Ernst et al., 2001) and radial grabens are often associated with
volcanic provinces on Mars (Fig. 6E).
3.2 Tectonism
Mars displays a variety of tectonic structures, both compressional (related to shortening of the crust) and
extensional (related to crust elongation) (Fig. 5C, D), which from both the morphologic and kinematic
point of view appear very similar to either terrestrial (extensional, mainly) or lunar counterparts (com-
pressional, mainly). The main difference is found in the geodynamics of Mars and Earth of which the
lack of plate tectonics is most dominant. The contribution of global sources of stress such as contraction
or polar wandering on currently observed structures is poorly constrained (Banerdt et al., 1992).
Compressional structures (Fig. 5C) (Watters, 1993; Mueller and Golombek, 2004) are present on a
global scale on Mars (Chicarro et al., 1985) and show a wide range of types, such as wrinkle ridges,
which appear as regularly spaced, two-sided asymmetric elevated curvilinear relief (Watters, 2004)
or lobate scarps (Watters and Robinson), positive one-sided features. Wrinkle ridges frequently oc-
cur on Mars, Moon, and Mercury (Head et al., 2007) and are located in a variety of locations and
geological settings on Mars (e.g. Chicarro et al., 1985; Plescia and Golombek, 1986; Watters, 1993;
Mueller and Golombek, 2004)
The generic compressional nature of wrinkle ridges and lobate scarps is out of doubt, but the exact
subsurface structural associations are not obvious (Schultz, 2000).
On the other hand, extensional structures (Fig. 5C, D) are morphologically easier to detect and
observe on Mars: extensional faults tend to be more visible as a rupture than compressional ones, usually
buried for most of their length. Long, narrow grabens can be found in a variety of locations on Mars
(e.g. Banerdt et al., 1992), while much more spectacular large-scale extensional features, comparable in
shape to terrestial extensional rifts (Hauber et al., 2009a) are located in few locations on both souther
and northern hemispheres (e.g. Thaumasia, Tempe Terra) (Hauber et al., 2009a): they consist of large,
complex association of normal faults, thousands of km long and few km deep.
Fig. 7 Samples of exogenic landforms and sedimentary deposits. A. Outflow channels:

Kasei Vallis (shaded relief derived form MGS MOLA data) B. Valley network, possible
sapping: Nanedi Vallis (MEX HRSC nadir from orbit 905) C. Deltas: Eberswalde fan delta
(MRO CTX mosaic) D. Interior Layered Deposits (ILD) in Juventae Chasma (MEX HRSC
nadir from orbit 243). E. Recent gullies on Mars (MGS MOC R1002078).
Dike swarms (Ernst et al., 2001), associated with narrow long grabens are often closely related to
large volcanic edifices such as Alba Patera.
Transcurrent or strike slip structures are also present at small scale on Mars (e.g. Schultz, 1989), but
are far less represented than compressional and extensional ones, also due to the lack of Plate Tectonics
and large-scale transform boundaries.
The occurrence and location of both compressional and extensional structures is strongly controlled
by the regional Geology on Mars (Fig. 3). In particular, the huge Tharsis bulge has global stress ef-
fects and it determined numerous radial (respect to Tharsis geometrical centre) extensional structures
(e.g. Tanaka et al., 1991; Banerdt et al., 1992) and concentric compressional ones (e.g. Chicarro et al.,
1985). The peculiar association of different types of tectonic structures and the huge Tharsis province
is due to the extreme loading produced and can be interpreted primarily as the result of a huge mantle
plume (Mège and Masson, 1996a; Baker et al., 2007), with various models presented in the literature
(e.g. Mège and Masson, 1996b; Grott and Breuer, 2009).
Tectonic activity on Mars is distributed over a wide time span (e.g. Banerdt et al., 1992), and it
is strongly linked with volcanism, which has been suggested to be rather recent in some cases (e.g.
Neukum et al., 2001), therefore some faults could have been recently active and potentially produced
earthquakes (Knapmeyer et al., 2006), but actual measurements are still lacking (e.g. Chicarro, 2009).
4 EXOGENIC PROCESSES
Exogenic processes on Mars find almost no other competitor than Earth in the Solar System for their
variety and magnitude and importance in shaping the planet’s surface. Many landforms and deposits on
Mars resemble Terrestrial counterparts, although their scale, similarly to the endogenic Martian volcanic
features, is usually much larger than on Earth.
This has been obvious since the early exploration of Mars (e.g. Nicks, 1967; Arvidson et al., 1980)
and the basis for most geological interpretations has been geomorphology, for more than three decades
(e.g. Baker, 1979; Carr, 1987; Baker et al., 1992), (Fig. 7).
Recent discoveries on Martian surface composition (e.g. Bibring et al., 2005; Bibring et al., 2006;
Mustard et al., 2005) include also many relevant observations in the field of sedimentary geology (e.g.
Gendrin et al., 2005; Mustard et al., 2008; Milliken et al., 2008, 2009) as all these new data are adding
mineralogical context information to geology and geomorphology, supporting the picture of an ear-
lier wetter Mars. Many mysteries remain on the detailed conditions of this water-rich period and the
actual relation between water-carved morphologies (such as outflow channels) and water-based alter-
ation of volcanic bedrock (e.g. Bibring et al., 2006). Noachian alteration of basaltic rocks was extensive
and lead to the formation of clay minerals, among others, but exact mechanisms of alteration and the
amound of water involvement are still largely discussed (e.g. Poulet et al., 2005; Ehlmann et al., 2009;
Schwenzer and Kring, 2009). The discovery of relatively younger sulfate deposits (Gendrin et al., 2005)
on Mars has also sparkled debates on their origin, either primary (e.g. Rossi et al., 2008) or derived from
alteration (Murchie et al., 2009). In this respect, rover-based data are complementing orbital datasets in
depicting local portraits of past Mars aqueous activity (e.g. Grotzinger et al., 2005).
The appreciation and utilization of the full impact of recent hyperspectral-based discoveries on Mars
will take probably years, but it is already changing the way Martian geology and geomorphology are
being studied.
4.1 Sedimentation and Erosion
A striking erosional landform class is constituted by outflow channels (e.g. Baker, 1979; Baker et al.,
1992) , very large (thousands of km long, tens of km wide, km deep) systems (Fig. 7A).
They have been interpreted to be the result of some sort of catastrophic fluid release (e.g Carr, 1979),
most likely water, but a certain role of ice in channel formation and modification has been proposed too
(Lucchitta, 2001). Such features are closely related to the so-called chaotic terrains on Mars which con-
sist of mesas to blocky terrains, where a clear disruption and loss of material has occurred (e.g. Sharp,
1973). They are mostly located at low latitudes, in the area of the crustal dichotomy boundary (Fig. 3)
and they have been suggested to have been produced by catastrophic release of fluids (e.g. Carr, 1979),
either in single or multiple episodes (e.g. Nelson and Greeley, 1999; Rodrı́guez et al., 2005). There are
no clear-cut terrestial analogues to chaotic terrains, although some morphological, and possibly mechan-
ical, similarity exists among these Martian features and submarine slope failures (Nummedal and Prior,
Fig. 8 Examples of Glacial, Periglacial and eolian deposits and landforms. A. Eolian
depositional landforms: Barchan dunes (MRO HIRISE PSP 009324 2650 RED) B. Mars
surface change: dust devil tracks on a flat plain (MRO HIRISE ESP 013958 1170 RED) C.
Swiss Cheese terrain on Martian polar caps (MGS MOC R1303615) D. Candidate glacier
on mars: Hour-glass crater (MEX HRSC nadir over HRSC stereo-derived topography).
1981), while the type of rocks is most likely completely different: unconsolidated to semi-consolidated
sediments on Earth and mega-regolith or stacked basaltic lava flows on Mars.
The role of surface/subsurface collapses in the formation of landforms such as chaotic terrains
(Rodrı́guez et al., 2005) or the neighboring Valles Marineris canyon system (Schultz, 1998) is very
likely but not well constrained, due to the lack of a clear subsurface picture.
In addition, apart from subsurface collapses, a certain pre-existing structural control on the chaotic
terrain development, either tectonic or impact related, is likely (e.g. Rodrı́guez et al., 2005).
A genetic connection between outflow channels and chaotic terrains, apart from the spatial vicin-
ity and morphological continuity has been proposed (e.g. Nelson and Greeley, 1999; Rodrı́guez et al.,
2005), implying that chaos areas are the source for the channel-carving fluids. Outflow channels ex-
perienced multiple episodes of flooding (Nelson and Greeley, 1999) and several phases of erosion and
sedimentation (e.g. Pacifici et al., 2009), thus producing the complex association of landforms now vis-
ible on the surface.
There are some Terrestrial analogues to large-scale flood-related features such as outflow channels
in Washington state (Baker, 2001, 2009), Gibraltar (Ryan, 2009) and the English Channel (Gupta et al.,
2007), but even the largest catastrophic flood on Earth is orders of magnitude smaller than the ones
on Mars, which can have discharges ranging from 108 to 109 cubic m3 /s (Baker, 2001). These huge
outflow channels have been proposed to be the water source for a putative Noachian Ocean occupying
the northern plains (Baker et al., 1991; Parker et al.) (Fig. 3A).
Smaller in scale and more similar to terrestrial river drainage systems are valley networks
(Baker et al., 1992) (e.g. a valley in Fig. 7A). Their age is variable across the planet, but most of them
date back to Noachian to Early Hesperian (Carr, 1995; Fassett and Head, 2008) Their geographical dis-
tribution is also peculiar, being located mostly in the Martian southern highlands (Fig. 3A) (Carr, 1995),
but also in other plateau locations (Mangold et al., 2004) or, particularly the younger Early Hesperian
ones, in association with volcanoes (Gulick, 2001). It is not completely clear wether valley networks
are the results of surface running water (i.e. precipitation) or, up to a variable extent, of groundwater
interaction (Baker et al., 1992).
Indeed, some of the channels on Mars (e.g. Fig. 7A) have been interpreted the effect of groundwater
erosion or sapping rather than precipitation (e.g. Howard et al., 1988). Nevertheless, their groundwater-
only origin has been challenged by some authors (e.g. Irwin et al., 2009). A hydrothermal origin, con-
sisting of water mobilization due to internal heating, has also been proposed for some of the sapping
channels on Mars (Gulick, 1998), including valley networks on volcano flanks (Gulick, 2001).
More Earth-like, both in terms of scale and geological features, fluvial and lacustrine landforms and
deposits are much smaller in size than outflow channels and valley networks, and much more difficult to
preserve over geological time scales. Therefore the actual examples are somewhat limited (e.g. Ori et al.,
2000; Lewis and Aharonson, 2006; Pondrelli et al., 2005; Di Achille et al., 2006; Pondrelli et al., 2008;
Hauber et al., 2009b), also given their very old Noacian age (Hauber et al., 2009b), although younger
ages have been proposed for some of them (e.g. Di Achille et al., 2007). After the first discoveries based
on Viking data (Ori et al., 2000), some spectacular examples of Martian delta fans have been found at
Martian southern latitudes of which the Eberswalde (previously known as Holden NE) delta is a promi-
nent one (Malin and Edgett, 2003). It is largely accepted that they are landforms produced in an ancient
Martian lake (e.g. Wood, 2006; Pondrelli et al., 2008) with a complex structure caused by by variation in
water level and supply over time (Pondrelli et al., 2008). Other similar features are scattered elsewhere
on Mars (Hauber et al., 2009b), but with variable state of complexity, exposure and preservation.
A prominent feature on Martian surface, well visible from extremely large distances, is the Valles
Marineris Canyon System, a 4000 km long, 7 km deep, tens to hundreds of km wide elongatated
depression (Lucchitta et al., 1992). Although its origin is closely related to Tharsis volcanism and tec-
tonism (e.g. Lucchitta et al., 1992; Schultz, 1998), water erosion had a significant role in shaping its
interior, as it appears spatially and genetically correlated with chaotic terrains and outflow channels
(e.g. Lucchitta et al., 1992; Baker et al., 1991).
Apart from the erosional landforms linked to more or less catastrophic fluid flow, Valles Marineris
hosts extensive, thick, so-called Interior Layered Deposits (ILD) () (Fig. 7D). They have been described
in detail (e.g. Lucchitta et al., 1992) and their actual origin is still mysterious, as many different genetic
hypotheses have been proposed, from volcanic to various kind of sedimentary options (e.g. Nedell et al.,
1987; Lucchitta et al., 1992; Chapman and Tanaka; Rossi et al., 2008; Murchie et al., 2009); the de-
posits themselves appear to be rich in sulfates of different kinds (Gendrin et al., 2005), possibly pro-
duced during or after the ILD emplacement. Such sulfate-rich deposits such as the one in Meridiani,
explored by one of the MER rovers (Squyres et al., 2004b), might have been either formed or altered
thanks to groundwater-related circulation and diagenetic activity (e.g. Grotzinger et al., 2005), possibly
driven by the large-scale Martian topography and physiography (e.g. Andrews-Hanna et al., 2007).
Much smaller in scale and recent features are constituted by gullies (Fig. 7E): they seem to be the
product of mass wasting, mostl likely a debris flow triggered by liquid water. They have been discov-
ered to form currently on Mars (Malin and Edgett, 2000) and they origin is still debated, either due to
near-surface liquid water emergence (Malin and Edgett, 2000), or, more likely, due to local ground ice
melting (e.g. Costard et al., 2002; Reiss et al., 2009).
Another aspect of Mars’ sedimentary environments has been important in the past and still is rather
active today: the aeolian one and the influence of wind-related processes in general (Greeley et al., 1992,
2001). Both erosional and depositional eolian landforms are very much similar to terrestrial ones, such
as dunes in desert areas (e.g. Fig. 8A), but Martian conditions are nevertheless rather different in terms
of surface pressure (about 0.0062 bar) and gravity (3.71 m/s2 ), affecting particle size transport (e.g.
Greeley et al., 1992, 2001). It has, however, to be kept in mind that ancient Mars might have had a much
higher surface pressure, before atmospheric loss due to lack of magnetic shielding (e.g. Barabash et al.,
2007; Chassefiere and Leblanc, 2004).
The provenance of material composing Martian dunes is often challenging (e.g. Silvestro et al.,
2009) and the actual activity of the depositional landforms is difficult to characterize, given the very
small changes that have been detected over several years (Bourke et al., 2008) on Martian dunes.
Regional and global dust storms (e.g. Gierasch, 1974; Zurek and Martin, 1993; Cantor et al., 2001)
are a peculiar phenomenon on Mars, which can produce global surface change in terms of albedo and
dust cover, and has a strong impact on orbital observation and surface exploration.
Finally, a very subtle type of feature is very important in producing even large albedo changes
on Martian surface (Geissler, 2005): dust devils (Balme and Greeley, 2006) (Fig. 8B): relatively
small tornado-like vortices that can lift dust-sized particles and inject them into the atmosphere
(Balme and Greeley, 2006). One of their useful side effects is the cleaning of eventual solar panels
that are crossed as it happened few times for the MER rovers.
4.2 Ice(s) on Mars
Much of the Martian landscape has been shaped by water and ice in the past and even today and an
abundance of landforms indicate the presence of liquid water on the surface of Mars in early history.
Near the surface, water and carbon dioxide ice is today present at high latitudes and within the polar
caps (Fig. 8C) whose size of the uppermost layer - the seasonal cap - is subject to seasonal variations
(e.g. Jian and Ip, 2009). The south and north polar caps of Mars are differerent in their appearance: the
white north-polar cap has a diameter of 800 km while the south polar cap measures no more than 300
km in diameter but both caps extent far beyond the visible portion visible in polar images of Mars. The
height of these features amounts to approximately 3 km above the surrounding terrain. The underlying
residual parts of the polar caps are composed of fine-layered deposits of dusty material intermixed with
water ice and form a residual unit termed polar layered deposits which have a diameter of 1000 km in the
north and about 1500 km in the south (Thomas et al., 1992a; Jakosky and Haberle, 1992; James et al.,
1992; Thomas et al., 2000; Piqueux et al., 2003; Hvidberg, 2005). A number of unusual landforms, such
as the so-called spiders and the swiss-cheese terrain are indicators for seasonal processes related to the
disappearance and deposition of carbon dioxide ice (Thomas et al., 2000; Piqueux et al., 2003).
While the polar caps exhibit ice at and close to the surface, the dominant reservoir of ice is consid-
ered to be hidden in the subsurface as permafrost as the planet is controlled by the periglacial domain at
all locations on the surface (e.g., Squyres et al., 1992; Kuzmin, 2005). This means that water on Mars is
frozen and that landscape evolution is controlled by ground ice (permafrost) interaction. Moreover, Mars
has a dry permafrost envrionemnt. There is no significant precipitation and thus Mars’ environment is
comparable to similar regions on Earth, such as the Dry Valleys in Antarctica or the high Canadian
Arctic.
The internal structure of Martian polar caps has been investigated for the first time thanks to
MARSIS (Picardi et al., 2004) and SHARAD (Seu et al., 2007) orbital sounding radars, which have
allowed the discovery of the total thickness and volume of polar caps (e.g. Plaut et al., 2007), their
erosional state (Seu et al., 2007) and their geophysical signature (Zuber et al., 2007).
Apart from the wealth of surface morphologies on Mars indicative of periglacial and permafrost
environments, i.e., the cryosphere, modelling work has significantly contributed to the understanding
of the distribution of Martian ground ice and its stability in connection to orbital oscillations (e.g.,
Mellon and Jakosky, 1995). The question of ground-ice stability needs to be seen under (a) present
and (b) past conditions, where a higher obliquity of the planet’s spin axis (e.g., Murray et al., 1973;
Pollack, 1979; Toon et al., 1980; Jakosky et al., 1995) might have caused re-deposition of polar volatiles
in equatorial latitudes (Levrard et al., 2004) and affected the stability and distribution of ground ice (e.g.,
Mellon and Jakosky, 1995). Modelling of the tilt of the spin axis suggests that the average axis tilt over
the last 5 Ma was almost 40◦ (Laskar et al., 2004).
For the present conditions on Mars, ground ice is not only controlled by the atmosphere but also by
the physical properties of the so-called Martian regolith and the exchange of volatiles between both sys-
tems. Ground ice is stable in the subsurface at locations where it is in equilibrium with the atmospheric
water vapor content. Clifford and Hillel (1983) and Fanale et al. (1986) performed analyses on the long-
term stability of ground ice in the regolith and estimated that at low latitudes, half of the ground-ice
covered by a 100 m dry layer of soil would have been lost during the last 3.8 Ga (Clifford and Hillel,
1983).
The plethora of ice-related landforms described from equatorial latitudes must therefore be relics
and witnesses of a past climate. Ice must have been preserved due to ”diffusion-limiting properties of
a fine-grained regolith” and a desiccated upper layer with a thickness of several 100 m (Fanale et al.,
1986; Squyres et al., 1992).
The periglacial environment on Mars hosts a variety of landforms ranging from millimeter-scale
to several hundreds of meters and more. Several major landforms are observable from Mars-orbiting
spacecraft that were interpreted to be formed and modified by permafrost processes. All of these land-
forms occur in two small latitude bands centered at ±45◦ on both hemispheres which implies a stron
climatic control. The best studied landforms are mass-wasting features related to interstitial ice and
thermal contraction polygons and associated features.
Landforms indicative of creep of ice and debris are considered to be either rock glaciers fed by wall-
rock erosion and secondary ice or glaciers fed by precipitation (primary ice) mainly (Squyres, 1978,
1979; Lucchitta, 1984; Squyres and Carr, 1986; Head et al., 2006a,b).
Similar to avalanche or landslide material, such creep features are related to mass-wasting that
produced large-scale landforms in the recent past (50-100 Myr ago) which deformed inter-
nally by ice-assisted creep as inferred by characteristic surface lineations and lobe morpholo-
gies. Today they occur predominantly at the Martian dichotomy bounday and the large southern-
hemispheric impact basins (Sharp, 1973; Carr and Schaber, 1977; Squyres, 1978, 1979; Lucchitta,
1981; Mangold and Allemand, 2001). Similar landforms are known from terrestrial polar and high
mountain areas (e.g., Tibet plateau) and are prime indicators for the past and present climate
(Barsch, 1996) and it could be shown that relict landforms (1 Gyr ago) are observed today closer
to the equator (Hauber et al., 2008). A complex interaction of youthful ice deposited through an
obliquity-driven mantling material (e.g., Mustard et al., 2001) and degradation of old permafrost
ist still being discussed (van Gasselt et al., 2010). There is observational evidence for Amazonian
glaciation in Martian equatorial latitudes and related to the Tharsis volcanic edifices termed fan-
shaped deposits which have been discussed in the context of analogues in the Antarctic Dry
Valleys.(Head and Marchant, 2003; Milkovich et al., 2006; Shean et al., 2007).
The actual detection of water ice within the proposed glacial deopsits on Mars has been possible in
few cases, thanks to the SHARAD sounding radar, in debris aprons both in the southern hemisphere
(Holt et al., 2008) and in the northern one (Plaut et al., 2009): in these cases, the interface between
ice-rich and ice-depleted materials is visible in the data as a subsurface reflector, separating deposits
with different dielectric properties.
For polygonal surface features on Mars, two major types are seen; one group consists of giant
kilometer-scale polygons observed in the near-Utopia Planitia region, the other group consists of
small meter-scale polygonal features known also from the Earth in regions of active permafrost and
seasonal thaw-freeze cycles. An extensive review and summary on the formation of the giant poly-
gons were provided by Hiesinger and Head (2000) and the reader is referred to this work and the
references cited herein fur further details as they are most likely not related to thermal contraction
due to seasonal temperature fluctuations.
In contrast to such large polygons, small-scaled features on Mars have a strong morphologic and
geometric resemblance to thermal-contraction polygons in terrestrial permafrost although there is
still some lack of evidence as some of these crack patterns compare closely to desiccation cracks
or even cooling joints in basaltic lava. In early lander-based imagery small-scale polygons already
were interpreted as ice-wedge analogues (Mutch et al., 1977; Lucchitta, 1981; Lucchitta, 1983). The
overall diameter-sizes vary considerably; values range from tens of meters to hundreds of meters
(e.g., Seibert and Kargel, 2001). They occur in the mid-latitude belts (Seibert and Kargel, 2001;
Mangold, 2005; Levy et al., 2009, 2010) but also on the polar caps and are modified within a sea-
sonal context (van Gasselt et al., 2005). Their association to periglacial processes seems valid as
they are often spatially related to sublimation pits indicative of subsurface thermokarst processes
(Carr and Schaber, 1977; Theilig and Greeley, 1979; Kargel and Strom, 1992; Costard and Kargel,
1995; Kargel, 2004; Morgenstern et al., 2007; Lefort et al., 2009, 2010).
5 OPEN ISSUES, FUTURE PROSPECTS AND CONCLUSIONS
We here tried to summarize, the very basics of aspects of Mars’ geologic record. These years, new
missions with new instruments and terabytes of data provide new insights into the evolution of Mars
and the post-Viking picture of the planet is being either confirmed or revised. Many discoveries have
been performed thanks to recently and currently flown spacecraft, but many more questions on Martian
complex geological record arose from them.
There is rather ample consensus on the fact that water in its liquid form was available in the first
hundred M yr of Mars’ geological history, which lead both to the formation of the well-known erosional
and depositional landforms and the recently discovered Noachian mineral alteration (e.g. Bibring et al.,
2006). Also, early Mars had a very intense geodynamic activity, which determined a surface, subsurface
and atmospheric environment less harsh than the current one.
Both the exact amount, duration and timing of water-related activity at the surface is still debated,
as the chronology and geodynamics of long-lived colossal volcanism on Mars, possibly active until very
recently (Neukum et al., 2004).
The possibility of the development and appearance of life on Mars (e.g. McKay, 1997) and its
early habitability (e.g. McCollom, 2006) are among the biggest open questions still open for Mars,
and its geological evolution played certainly a key, but still not completely understood role (Westall,
2005). The recent discovery (Formisano et al., 2004a) of space and time-variable methane on Mars
(Mumma et al., 2009) could point, among other abiogenic possibilities (e.g. Oze and Sharma, 2005), to
current microbial life (e.g. Krasnopolsky et al., 2004; Tung et al., 2005).
The future of robotic exploration of Mars will try to tackle some of these strongly interrelated
issues, with different mission architectures, involving orbiter, landers, rovers or sample-return missions.
The importance of surface mobility has already been demonstrated by Mars Exploration Rover (MER)
mission, since 2004 and it will be a key factor in performing field Earth-like geological observations in
a variety of different settings on Mars.
The use of terrestrial analogues, taking into account all their limits, in terms of morphologies, struc-
tures and processes (Chapman, 2007) has proven to be very useful when trying to interpret an alien
geologic record such as the Martian one.
Data from future missions, as well current and past mission data, will be available to the interna-
tional community through long-term archives such as the NASA Planetary Data System (Wang et al.,
2009) or the ESA Planetary Science Archive (Heather et al., 2008) and publicly available tools exist
for processing and analyzing planetary data sets, such as the United States Geological Survey (USGS)
Integrated Software for Imagers and Spectrometers (ISIS) (Gaddis et al., 1997; Anderson et al., 2004),
for which tutorial documentation is available from a variety of sources (e.g. USGS, 2010; ESA, 2007,
2008a,b; PDS, 2009).
In this respect, the role of future missions such as the Chinese Yinghuo-1 (Ping et al., 2010; Zhao,
2010) and the further development of international cooperation in Mars exploration will improve data
exploitation and, on the long run, substantially increase our understanding of Mars. Therefore. also the
knowledge of Martian geology will surely increase in forthcoming years and decades, especially if am-
bitious programmes of Mars exploration (several rovers, Mars Sample Return), will indeed materialize
in the near future. The exploitation of currently available dataset will enormously advance our geologi-
cal knowledge of the planet. Viking only, a mere few Gigabytes (PDS, 2010) of datasets, produced in
more than 20 years a wealth of scientific results (e.g. Carr, 1987; Kieffer and Jakosky, 1993). Currenly
collected Mars data (early 2010) are of at least several tens of T erabytes, 3 to 4 orders of magnitude
higher.
On our Earth we had several hundred years of modern Geology, with full access to surface and
subsurface sampling. On the other hand, on Mars we had one order of magnitude less time and much
less sampling capabilities, thus far. Whatever will be the shape of future planetary exploration, big
fundamental issues on the evolution of Mars and the terrestrial planets at large will have to be tack-
led. Fostering international cooperation among all interested parties will be the key to answering those
questions.
Acknowledgements This paper was inspired by the short course ”ESA China Mars Advanced School”
( http://www.chinahou.org/mars/ ), held on July 20th -24th , 2009 in Jiaxing, China and it very briefly
summarizes its Geology section. We thank all the organizers, teachers and participants. Our gratitude
goes particularly to Wing-Huen Ip and Agustin Chicarro. Thanks to the International Space Science
Insitute (ISSI) for the continuous support. We are also very grateful to Monica Pondrelli, Ernst Hauber,
Gaetano di Achille, Barbara Cavalazzi and Andrea Pacifici for all the valuable material they provided
while preparing the lectures. Thanks to an anonymous reviewer for constructive comments and sugges-
tions.
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Geology of Mars after the ﬁrst 40 years of exploration

Article in Research in Astronomy and Astrophysics · July 2010

Angelo Pio Rossi Stephan van Gasselt

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Geology of Mars after the first 40 years of exploration

A. P. Rossi1 and S. van Gasselt2

5 Open issues, Future prospects and Conclusions 22

1.1 Mars vs. Earth - A General Overview

1.1.2 Physical Properties

1.2 A Brief History of Mars Exploration

2.1 Chronology and Stratigraphy

2.2 Crater morphology

Fig. 5 Global tectonism and volcamism on Mars in orthographic projection, divided

Fig. 7 Samples of exogenic landforms and sedimentary deposits. A. Outflow channels:

4.1 Sedimentation and Erosion

4.2 Ice(s) on Mars

5 OPEN ISSUES, FUTURE PROSPECTS AND CONCLUSIONS

Mars Geology after 40 years 33

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