A team of researchers have identified the first mineralogical evidence of past glaciers in the Grand Canyon of Mars.
For decades, planetary geologists have speculated that glaciers might once have crept through Valles Marineris, the 2000-mile-long chasm that constitutes the Grand Canyon of Mars.
Using satellite images, researchers have identified a layer of mixed sulfate minerals halfway up the three-mile-high cliffs of Ius Chasma at the western end of the canyon system, suggesting that they might have been carved by past glaciers as they flowed through the canyons within the Valles Marineris, however, these observations have remained highly controversial and contested.
A joint team from Bryn Mawr College and the Freie Universitaet Berlin mapped the acid-sulfate mineral jarosite along the canyon wall, suggesting that it may have formed via a mechanism similar to one observed at glaciers in the Svalbard on Earth, where atmospheric sulfur becomes trapped in the ice, is warmed by the sun, and reacts with the water to produce highly acidic sulfate minerals like jarosite along the margins of the glacier.