Jf. Mustard et al., Evidence for recent climate change on Mars from the identification of youthful near-surface ground ice, NATURE, 412(6845), 2001, pp. 411-414
Ground ice in the crust and soil may be one of the largest reservoirs of wa
ter on Mars(1-3). Near-surface ground ice is predicted to be stable at lati
tudes higher than 40 degrees (ref. 4), where a number of geomorphologic fea
tures indicative of viscous creep and hence ground ice have been observed(5
). Mid-latitude soils have also been implicated as a water-ice reservoir(6)
, the capacity of which is predicted to vary on a 100,000-year timescale ow
ing to orbitally driven variations in climate(7). It is uncertain, however,
whether near-surface ground ice currently exists at these latitudes, and h
ow it is changing with time. Here we report observational evidence for a mi
d-latitude reservoir of near-surface water ice occupying the pore space of
soils. The thickness of the ice-occupied soil reservoir (1-10 m) and its di
stribution in the 30 degrees to 60 degrees latitude bands indicate a reserv
oir of (1.5-6.0) x 10(4) km(3), equivalent to a global layer of water 10-40
cm thick. We infer that the reservoir was created during the last phase of
high orbital obliquity less than 100,000 years ago, and is now being dimin
ished.