Gully formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes
We report on a decade of fieldwork designed to determine the conditions required for erosion of Mars-like gully channels in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) of Antarctica. We have outlined the major factors in the morphological evolution of gullies in the Inland Mixed Zone of the MDV: (1) the distribut...
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ftdatacite:10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992.v1 2023-05-15T13:32:59+02:00 Gully formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes Dickson, James L. Head, James W. Levy, Joseph S. Morgan, Gareth A. Marchant, David R. 2017 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992.v1 https://figshare.com/collections/Gully_formation_in_the_McMurdo_Dry_Valleys_Antarctica_multiple_sources_of_water_temporal_sequence_and_relative_importance_in_gully_erosion_and_deposition_processes/3935992/1 unknown Figshare https://dx.doi.org/10.1144/sp467.4 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992 CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 CC-BY Geology FOS Earth and related environmental sciences Collection article 2017 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992.v1 https://doi.org/10.1144/sp467.4 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z We report on a decade of fieldwork designed to determine the conditions required for erosion of Mars-like gully channels in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) of Antarctica. We have outlined the major factors in the morphological evolution of gullies in the Inland Mixed Zone of the MDV: (1) the distribution of ice sources; (2) the temporal aspects of ice melting; and (3) the relative significance of melting events in gullies. We show that significant erosion of gully channels can be achieved if geometrical and environmental conditions combine to concentrate ice where it can rapidly melt. In contrast, annual melting of surface ice and snow deposits during late-season discharge events contribute to transport of water, but flux rarely surpasses the infiltration capacity of the active layer. These small discharge events do not erode channels of significant width. Even when the flux is sufficient to carve a c . 10–20 cm deep channel during late summer (January–February) runoff, these small channels seldom persist through multiple seasons, because they are seasonally muted and filled with aeolian deposits. We briefly discuss the application of these results to the study of gully systems on Mars. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctica McMurdo Dry Valleys DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) McMurdo Dry Valleys |
institution |
Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftdatacite |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Geology FOS Earth and related environmental sciences |
spellingShingle |
Geology FOS Earth and related environmental sciences Dickson, James L. Head, James W. Levy, Joseph S. Morgan, Gareth A. Marchant, David R. Gully formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes |
topic_facet |
Geology FOS Earth and related environmental sciences |
description |
We report on a decade of fieldwork designed to determine the conditions required for erosion of Mars-like gully channels in the McMurdo Dry Valleys (MDV) of Antarctica. We have outlined the major factors in the morphological evolution of gullies in the Inland Mixed Zone of the MDV: (1) the distribution of ice sources; (2) the temporal aspects of ice melting; and (3) the relative significance of melting events in gullies. We show that significant erosion of gully channels can be achieved if geometrical and environmental conditions combine to concentrate ice where it can rapidly melt. In contrast, annual melting of surface ice and snow deposits during late-season discharge events contribute to transport of water, but flux rarely surpasses the infiltration capacity of the active layer. These small discharge events do not erode channels of significant width. Even when the flux is sufficient to carve a c . 10–20 cm deep channel during late summer (January–February) runoff, these small channels seldom persist through multiple seasons, because they are seasonally muted and filled with aeolian deposits. We briefly discuss the application of these results to the study of gully systems on Mars. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Dickson, James L. Head, James W. Levy, Joseph S. Morgan, Gareth A. Marchant, David R. |
author_facet |
Dickson, James L. Head, James W. Levy, Joseph S. Morgan, Gareth A. Marchant, David R. |
author_sort |
Dickson, James L. |
title |
Gully formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes |
title_short |
Gully formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes |
title_full |
Gully formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes |
title_fullStr |
Gully formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes |
title_full_unstemmed |
Gully formation in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes |
title_sort |
gully formation in the mcmurdo dry valleys, antarctica: multiple sources of water, temporal sequence and relative importance in gully erosion and deposition processes |
publisher |
Figshare |
publishDate |
2017 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992.v1 https://figshare.com/collections/Gully_formation_in_the_McMurdo_Dry_Valleys_Antarctica_multiple_sources_of_water_temporal_sequence_and_relative_importance_in_gully_erosion_and_deposition_processes/3935992/1 |
geographic |
McMurdo Dry Valleys |
geographic_facet |
McMurdo Dry Valleys |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctica McMurdo Dry Valleys |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctica McMurdo Dry Valleys |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1144/sp467.4 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992 |
op_rights |
CC BY 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992.v1 https://doi.org/10.1144/sp467.4 https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3935992 |
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