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Research Progress of Aeolian Landforms on Mars

  • Li Jiyan ,
  • Dong Zhibao
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  • 1. Key Laboratory of Desert and Desertification, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China;
    2. School of Geography Science, Taiyuan Normal University, Jinzhong 030619, Shanxi, China;
    3. College of Tourism and Environment, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi'an 710062, China

Received date: 2014-12-11

  Revised date: 2015-01-26

  Online published: 2016-07-20

Abstract

As the most active external geomorphic agency, wind shaped a diversity of aeolian landforms on Martian surface. The understanding and knowledge to aeolian activity and landforms on Mars is gradually becoming clear with the development of techniques on observation and exploration. Aeolian dunes on the north polar form a continuous belt to be the only sand desert on Mars. Whereas dunes in the other regions are much sporadic and coexist with craters, wadies and valleys. Compared with the counterparts on Earth, the aeolian landforms on Mars are much larger in size but the external morphology is very similar, which indicates the similarity of geomorphic agencies on both planets. The Martian dunes are mainly accumulated by basaltic grains, while some dunes in the north polar are deposited by gypsum. The grain size of sand on Mars is much coarser than on Earth and the dunes are mainly composed of medium and coarse sand. With the increasing of temporal-spatial resolution of obtained remote images and the near surface observation of landers, it indicates that dunes and ripples in some region are still active. The aeolian landforms can also indicate climate change on Mars, just as on Earth.

Cite this article

Li Jiyan , Dong Zhibao . Research Progress of Aeolian Landforms on Mars[J]. Journal of Desert Research, 2016 , 36(4) : 951 -961 . DOI: 10.7522/j.issn.1000-694X.2015.00044

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