This HiRISE camera false-color image shows dozens of beds within a light-toned deposit located in a trough in the Noctis Labyrinthus region of Mars. CRISM spectra suggest a general sulfate mineralogy for the light-toned deposit. However, the beds differ in brightness, color, thickness, and erosional properties, suggesting that many compositions may be present here but are too thin to be resolved. (Credit: NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory/The University of Arizona)

ScienceDaily (Dec. 17, 2009) — Catherine Weitz, a senior scientist at the Tucson-based Planetary Science Institute, has reported new evidence for multiple, water-related geologic processes on Mars.

She and her colleagues studied light-toned deposits (LTDs) within troughs of the Noctis Labyrinthus region in western Valles Marineris using data gathered by three Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) instruments: the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera, the Context Camera (CTX) and the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM).

Weitz presented the research results during a morning session of the American Geophysical Union Conference in San Francisco, Calif.

"We analyzed ten troughs containing well-exposed LTDs, and we found a lot of variability that we didn't expect to see," she said. "We found that each of the troughs with LTDs has a unique mineralogy, and, therefore, the processes occurring in each trough were very localized."

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