Mars: Huge Tsunamis Hit The Red Planet Billions Of Years Ago

The geologic shape of shorelines observed through Mars' northern plains suggest to Cornell University researchers that a couple of large meteorites hit the Red Planet millions of years apart. It led to huge massive tsunamis on that planet, which left their mark on it, indicating it harbored cold, salty oceans that can harbor life.

"About 3.4 billion years ago, a big meteorite impact triggered the first tsunami wave," said Alberto Fairén, Cornell visiting scientist in astronomy and co-author of the study. "This wave was composed of liquid water. It formed widespread backwash channels to carry the water back to the ocean."

Between the two huge tsunamis, the Martian climate shifted too, which made its water icy.

"The ocean level receded from its original shoreline to form a secondary shoreline because the climate had become significantly colder," Fairén said.

With the attack of the second massive tsunami, rounded lobes of ice were created.

"These lobes froze on the land as they reached their maximum extent and the ice never went back to the ocean - which implies the ocean was at least partially frozen at that time," Fairén said. "Our paper provides very solid evidence for the existence of very cold oceans on early Mars. It is difficult to imagine Californian beaches on ancient Mars, but try to picture the Great Lakes on a particularly cold and long winter, and that could be a more accurate image of water forming seas and oceans on ancient Mars."

Moreover, their well-defined boundaries and shapes show that the planet's frozen seas were high in salt content.

"Cold, salty waters may offer a refuge for life in extreme environments as the salts could help keep the water liquid," Fairén said. "If life existed on Mars, these icy tsunami lobes are very good candidates to search for biosignatures."

"We have already identified some areas inundated by the tsunamis where the ponded water appears to have emplaced lacustrine sediments, including evaporites," said Alexis Rodriguez of Cornell University and lead author of the study. "As a follow-up investigation, we plan to characterize these terrains and assess their potential for future robotic or human in-situ exploration."

The findings were published in the May 19 issue of the journal Scientific Reports.