Putative eskers and new insights into glacio-fluvial depositional settings in southern Argyre Planitia, Mars

We present new insights into possible formation mechanisms and implications for previously identified landforms of putative glacio-fluvial origin along the southern rim of the Argyre basin on Mars. We compiled a detailed geomorphologic map of the study area and conducted morphometric and stratigraphic analyses of specific features, e.g., esker-like sinuous ridges on layered terrain. Based on their morphology and orientations, we subdivided the sinuous ridges on the southern Argyre basin floor into two populations, which could reflect changing conditions of glacial retreat. With the transition and oblique path methods we quantified the ice thickness of the glacier under which the first, lesser degraded, population of ridges probably formed. Our results imply an ice sheet thickness of ~2 km and at least ~100,000-150,000 km³ of ice on the southern floor of the Argyre basin during the time those ridges were deposited (>30× the volume of Vatnajökull, Iceland). The second population of ridges is more degraded and shows layers occasionally extending into the surrounding layered terrain. Comparisons with the morphology surrounding the Piedmont-style Malaspina Glacier in Alaska show similarities, suggesting population II formed during a glacial retreat involving back- and downwasting of stagnant ice lying beneath fresh outwash sediments, creating degraded and layered lag deposits around the emerging eskers. If outwash sediments were fed by the same drainage source as the eskers, sections of layers can extend from a given ridge into the surrounding deposits. The differences between the two ridge populations are probably a result of the subglacial drainage direction changing from northward to north-eastward around 3.6 Ga ago. This was likely coupled with the deposition of less or no outwash sediments resulting in a decrease of lag deposits. A subsequent phase of stagnant glacial retreat left no terminal moraines and largely preserved the population I ridges, thus implying sufficient glacial thinning in order for the ice flow to stop. This, in turn, may have been caused either by sublimation in a cold but increasingly dry climate, or by melting and increased glacier surface runoff due to rising temperatures.