Global drainage patterns and the origins of topographic relief on Earth, Mars, and Titan
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Blacketal2017scienceprepub.pdf
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Author(s)
Black, Benjamin A.
Hemingway, Douglas
Bailey, Elizabeth
Nimmo, Francis
Zebker, Howard
Perron, J. Taylor
Date Issued
May 2017
Journal
Science
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Citation
Black, Benjamin A., et al. “Global Drainage Patterns and the Origins of Topographic Relief on Earth, Mars, and Titan.” Science, vol. 356, no. 6339, May 2017, pp. 727–31.
Version
Author's final manuscript
Abstract
Rivers have eroded the topography of Mars, Titan, and Earth, creating diverse landscapes. However, the dominant processes that generated topography on Titan (and to some extent on early Mars) are not well known. We analyzed drainage patterns on all three bodies and found that large drainages, which record interactions between deformation and erosional modification, conform much better to long-wavelength topography on Titan and Mars than on Earth. We use a numerical landscape evolution model to demonstrate that short-wavelength deformation causes drainage directions to diverge from long-wavelength topography, as observed on Earth. We attribute the observed differences to ancient long-wavelength topography on Mars, recent or ongoing generation of long-wavelength relief on Titan, and the creation of short-wavelength relief by plate tectonics on Earth.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1126/SCIENCE.AAG0171
