Eridania Lake is a hypothesized ancient lake on
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...
with a surface area of roughly 1.1 million square kilometers. It is located at the source of the
Ma'adim Vallis outflow channel and extends into
Eridania quadrangle and the
Phaethontis quadrangle. As Eridania Lake dried out in the late
Noachian epoch it divided into a series of smaller lakes.
PIA22059 fig1eridaniadepths.jpg, Map showing estimated water depth in different parts of Eridania Sea This map is about 850 km (530 miles) across.
PIA22059 fig1eridaniadepthslabeled.jpg, Features around Eridania Sea labeled
Makeup
Later research with
CRISM found thick deposits, greater than 400 meters thick, that contained the minerals
saponite
Saponite is a trioctahedral mineral of the smectite group. Its chemical formula is . It is soluble in sulfuric acid. It was first described in 1840 by Lars Fredrik Svanberg, Svanberg. Varieties of saponite are griffithite, bowlingite and sobotk ...
, talc-saponite, Fe-rich
mica
Micas ( ) are a group of silicate minerals whose outstanding physical characteristic is that individual mica crystals can easily be split into fragile elastic plates. This characteristic is described as ''perfect basal cleavage''. Mica is co ...
(for example,
glauconite-
nontronite), Fe- and Mg-serpentine, Mg-Fe-Ca-
carbonate
A carbonate is a salt of carbonic acid, (), characterized by the presence of the carbonate ion, a polyatomic ion with the formula . The word "carbonate" may also refer to a carbonate ester, an organic compound containing the carbonate group ...
and probable Fe-
sulphide. The Fe-sulphide probably formed in deep water from water heated by
volcano
A volcano is commonly defined as a vent or fissure in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most oft ...
es. Such a process, classified as
hydrothermal
Hydrothermal circulation in its most general sense is the circulation of hot water (Ancient Greek ὕδωρ, ''water'',Liddell, H.G. & Scott, R. (1940). ''A Greek-English Lexicon. revised and augmented throughout by Sir Henry Stuart Jones. with th ...
may have been a place where
life
Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...
began. Some sources say clay deposits can be up to 2 km thick.
The Eridania lake shows an assumed shoreline seeing all the depressions that are all connected which is why this might have been a huge lake in ancient times. The Eridania lake is supposed to be one of the largest lake systems on mars at a point in time. The lake is part of the Ariadnes Basin, and it's coastline is approximately 900 meters above the Mars Datum. Fe/Mg-rich smectite clays and other phyllosilicate deposits have been detected in this area.
The Eridania lake drained into the Ma’adim valleys turning into isolated closed lakes. By looking at the thickness of the sediments in these closed lakes we can see that they may have lasted for a long period of time. Some observations continue to point toward a lake and catastrophic drainage such as the presence of valley networks terminating at the elevation of the Ma’adim Valles.
The Eridania lake is believed to have had at least 562,000 km
3 of water, and there was a breach in the Eridania paleolake system which created the Ma’adim valleys which was forced by a catastrophic flood.
Gallery
PIA22058 hireseridanaregion.jpg, Deep-basin deposits from the floor of Eridania Sea. The mesas on the floor are there because they were protected against intense erosion by deep water/ice cover. CRISM measurements show minerals may be from seafloor hydrothermal deposits. Life may have originated in this sea.
PIA22060 hireseridania.jpg, Diagram showing how volcanic activity may have caused deposition of minerals on floor of Eridania Sea. Chlorides were deposited along the shoreline by evaporation.
See also
*
CRISM
*
Eridania quadrangle
*
Lakes on Mars
*
Water on Mars
Although very small amounts of liquid water may occur transiently on the surface of Mars, limited to traces of dissolved moisture from the atmosphere and thin films, large quantities of ice are present on and under the surface. Small amounts of ...
References
External links
Lakes on Mars – Nathalie Cabrol (SETI Talks)
{{Portal bar, Solar System
Surface features of Mars
Former lakes