How did the Erosion on Mars occur

My first thought is "Who cares"?

... and who knows? If the scientists aren’t offering up their theories as to how it happened, why try and pose a theory? Are you a scientist? Pls tell us what you credentials are so that we might understand how you came to this conclusion when cognoscenti haven’t.

Because he or she is interested in figuring out what happened.

Not everyone is like you. Some of us like to think for ourselves and are capable of doing it.



I would say that he or she is close enough. They have shown a willingness to think about problems and propose solutions.



If nothing else they have shown a willingness to think. I can see why this would provoke bitterness from those who do not do any thinking.

Most people are interested in learning the answers to such questions. That's why we keep sending extremely expensive probes to Mars.

It not often that I agree with you 100 percents but this thread is one of those times.

The who care posters on this threads are the type of people who would be more comfortable living in caves.

You used to agree with me quite a bit. I still think of you as an old friend even when we disagree.

If you look at the overhead photography (especially that which is in oblique contrast ) . you can see patterns of what appear to be stream distribu taries that empty into basins of equal elevation.(NASA has several " slope shade" LIDAR pages) In these we can see the sense of equal elevation basins .These are most probably seas of some extent. The XRF and multispectral scanning also shows the chemical makeup of the now desert like areas that were once these seas. NASA has some collections of these spectral acns in which we can see salt deposits almost like those we can see on dry basins on the earth (look up dry Gulf of karabugas) sp? In these dry basins we can see the salt patterns that leave prints almost like concentric ring of alt pecies that have lesser to higher solubilities (Like in the edges of a dry basin we can see spectra of salts like natron , then natrolite, prrysonite sylvite and finally along the center deeper part of the basin, there are deposits of halite (Na Cl). Other , more rare salt bodies like thos of K permanganate,"wad" and other compounds that form those "blueberry deposits".
No doubt we are dealing with a once wet planet that became a desert (with remnant deposits of fairly vast reaches of ground waters), and these original surface waters seemed to have disappeared in a short time . I think e can safely say that but as to causality, Im not sure we have enough data. We can see in a very small number of photos that huge nasses of running water formed distributaries with sediment deposits from "standing waves" and rocks showing some rounding from water. however, we see no deposits of regionlcross bedding or density disparities so much of causality may have to wait as we see what new drill data and macro photography can show.
Theres a lot of time and mony being expended so I can understand that JPL and the university partnrs arent about to theorize without stronger evidence. We also need much more geophysical data (seismic and magnetometry and large wenner arrays) to really understand this planets tectonic history.

Im not following the structural or topo work because I believe thats a multi decade task. i think we are looking more at resources for sustainability and evidence of early life (besides geochemical mapping).
Sigma Xi pubs post periodic summaries of what we know now without trying to sound like a tabloid.

who know how much wegwt on this trip. I too want to be able to read of periodic findings from our (and I beieve China;s) newest rovers.

Ill watch this space if you come up with anything and any links Id love to see em.

Im a retired mining geologist whos dirtied his hands in a lot of areas because many times we discover, unannounced, new tricks that serve our own researches.
Anybody says "who cares" Ill kick em in the ass on behalf of all nerds of this planet.

Thanks Farmerman, found that informative. I simply added up the following facts:

Mars once had a magnetic field which would have protected its atmosphere (i.e. it would have had enough atmospheric pressure for water to exist o its surface).
We know that that atmosphere has disappeared, and we know why (lost its protection from magnetic fields).

So now link the dots, what would happen to all that water if the atmosphere suddenly started "thinning"?

And I came up with a scenario that sounds plausible.

C

Im Wrw, Theres at least 4 equally interetsing hypotheses and until we seriously understand the changes in declination and gauss decay of the mag field through time, yours is one good but still one of several hypothetical possibilities.
I dont have the issue but the AGU journals had decent analyses of existing evidence. Relict sedimentary magnetism isnt on the "todo" list for NASA Mars until 2030 (Maybe China will jack it up a bit)

interestingly there are severak areas that appear to deltas that overlie and intersect large embayments, as if the events occured on separate times.