PROCESSES AND MORPHOLOGIES OF ICELANDIC GULLIES AND IMPLICATIONS FOR MARS

• Main Authors: Benjamin A. Black, Thorsteinn Thorsteinsson
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Iceland
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.496.648; http://www.vedur.is/media/vedurstofan/utgafa/greinargerdir/2009/Black_Processes_and_morphologies.pdf

Iceland provides an excellent natural laboratory for studies of debris flows and other steep slope water-related transport processes. These phenomena are important for the understanding of terrestrial landscape evolution. Basic morphological similarities between Icelandic gullies and controversial, potentially water-related gullies on Mars suggest that Icelandic gullies may also offer insight into the conditions and mechanisms of Martian gully formation. An understanding of how different processes lead to different morphologies in Iceland could identify diagnostic features to help fingerprint the range of processes operating on Mars. Aerial photographs of study sites in Iceland, along with on-site temperature sensors, provide information about the evolution of gully morphology and timescales of gully activity. We use our preliminary observations to investigate the roles of snowmelt, rainfall, and topography in shaping Icelandic steep-slope features.