Overview
Outflow channels were first detected on images from the Mariner 9 mission (Baker and Milton 1974). They are the strongest morphological evidence that large amounts of water once flowed on the Martian surface. Characteristic landforms of outflow channels are anastomosing (building a network of streams that both branch out and reconnect) channels, streamlined erosional “islands,” dry cataracts, and scour marks and grooves on the channel floors (Baker 1982). The closest terrestrial analog for outflow channels is the huge complex of anastomosing rock-cut fluvial channels in east-central Washington (USA). This so-called Channeled Scabland was first interpreted by J Harlan Bretz as the result of the catastrophic...
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References and Further Reading
Baker VR (1982) The channels of Mars. University of Texas Press, Austin, 198 pp
Baker VR (2009) The Channeled Scabland: a retrospective. Annu Rev Earth Planet Sci 37:393–411
Baker VR, Milton DJ (1974) Erosion by catastrophic floods on Mars and Earth. Icarus 23:27–41
Baker VR, Strom RG, Gulick VC, Kargel JS, Komatsu G, Kale VS (1991) Ancient oceans, ice sheets and the hydrological cycle on Mars. Nature 352:589–594
Bates R, Jackson J (1980) Glossary of geology, 2nd edn. American Geological Institute, Falls Church, Virginia, 677 pp
Bretz H (1923) The Channeled Scabland of the Columbia Plateau. J Geol 31:617–649
Head JW, Wilson L, Mitchell KL (2003) Generation of recent massive water floods at Cerberus Fossae, Mars by dike emplacement, cryospheric cracking, and confined aquifer groundwater release. Geophys Res Lett 30:1577. doi:10.1029/2003GL017135
Lucchitta BK (1982) Ice sculpture in the Martian outflow channels. J Geophys Res 87:9951–9973
Neukum G, Basilevsky AT, Kneissl T, Chapman MG, Van Gasselt S, Michael G, Jaumann R, Hoffmann H, Lanz JK (2010) The geologic evolution of Mars: episodicity of resurfacing events and ages from cratering analysis of image data and correlation with radiometric ages of Martian meteorites. Earth Planet Sci Lett 294:204–222
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Hauber, E. (2014). Outflow Channels. In: Amils, R., et al. Encyclopedia of Astrobiology. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_1133-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-27833-4_1133-3
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