Debris Flow as a Mechanism for Forming Martian Gullies

The current low temperatures and pressures at the martian surface are not conducive to the stability of liquid water; hence the discovery of recently active, fluvial-like gullies [1, 2] presents an apparent paradox: how can these fluvial landforms have occurred if water is not stable at the surface? To approach this problem we have compared the morphometric properties of gullies in various settings on Earth to those of gullies on Mars. We have measured debris flows in Westfjords, Iceland [3] and gullies in La Gomera, Canary Islands [4]. The Iceland elevation data were generated from differential GPS and a LiDAR survey, and the La Gomera data from differential GPS. In addition we used elevation data from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM) extracted along previously mapped debris flows in the Taurids Mountains, Turkey [5] and the Colorado Front Range, USA [6]. We have compared these data to preliminary analyses of stereo HiRISE images of martian gullies in four locations using a method to extract point elevation data developed by Kreslavsky [7]. In all cases the elevation along the centre channel of the debris flow or gully was used for comparison to Mars. For Iceland and La Gomera we also extracted cross-profiles for comparison with martian gullies.