New Martian valley network volume estimate consistent with ancient ocean and warm and wet climate

Abstract

The volume of Martian valley network (VN) cavity and the amount of water needed to create the cavity by erosion are of significant importance for understanding the early Martian climate, the style and rate of hydrologic cycling, and the possibility of an ancient ocean. However, previous attempts at estimating these two quantities were based on selected valleys or at local sites using crude estimates of VN length, width and depth. Here we employed an innovative progressive black top hat transformation method to estimate them on a global scale based on the depth of each valley pixel. The conservative estimate of the minimum global VN volume is 1.74 × 10¹⁴ m³ and minimum cumulative volume of water required is 6.86 × 10¹⁷ m³ (or ∼5 km of global equivalent layer, GEL). Both are much larger than previous estimates and are consistent with an early warm and wet climate with active hydrologic cycling involving an ocean.