From Grains to Landscapes: Reconstructing Martian Environments at Multiple Scales

*********************************
There is now a CONTENT FREEZE for Mercury while we switch to a new platform. It began on Friday, March 10 at 6pm and will end on Wednesday, March 15 at noon. No new content can be created during this time, but all material in the system as of the beginning of the freeze will be migrated to the new platform, including users and groups. Functionally the new site is identical to the old one. webteam@gatech.edu
*********************************

Event Details
  • Date/Time:
    • Tuesday February 26, 2019
      11:00 am - 11:50 am
  • Location: Ford Environmental, Science & Technology (ES&T) Building, Rm. L1205. 11am
  • Phone:
  • URL:
  • Email:
  • Fee(s):
    Free
  • Extras:
Contact

Andrew Newman

Summaries

Summary Sentence: A seminar by Dr. Frances Rivera-Hernandez, School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences

Full Summary: No summary paragraph submitted.

Media
  • Frances Rivera-Hernández Frances Rivera-Hernández
    (image/jpeg)

The School of Earth and Atmoshperic Sciences Presents Dr. Frances Rivera-Hernandez, Dartmouth University

From Grains to Landscapes: Reconstructing Martian Environments at Multiple Scales

Sedimentary deposits provide robust constraints on the global hydrosphere and climate of early Mars, fundamental aspects to determining whether Mars had conditions suitable for sustaining life. 
 
My research reconstructs the depositional environments of early Mars from interpretations of sedimentary deposits ranging from the scale of sediment grains to entire landscapes. At the sediment grain-scale, accurate measurement of the size and distribution of grains provides quantitative constraints on the energy available for sediment transport in ancient depositional environments. 
 
At the landscape scale, detailed mapping of landforms such as alluvial fans and deltaic deposits place important limits on the distribution, abundance, and relative timing of surface liquid water. In this talk, I will present results from two studies focused on characterizing the paleo-hydrology of Gale Crater region, the landing site for the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity rover. 
 
The talk will focus on a new grain size proxy I developed using geochemical analyses from the ChemCam instrument on the Curiosity rover, and a detailed reconstruction of depositional environments we have surveyed in the Murray formation. 
 
To place this work in a wider context, I will present recent results of geomorphic mapping of deltaic deposits that consider the hypothesis that Gale Crater may have once been associated with a network of regional lakes, or a global ocean.

Additional Information

In Campus Calendar
Yes
Groups

EAS

Invited Audience
Faculty/Staff, Postdoc, Graduate students, Undergraduate students
Categories
Seminar/Lecture/Colloquium
Keywords
EAS Seminar
Status
  • Created By: nlawson3
  • Workflow Status: Published
  • Created On: Dec 13, 2018 - 2:39pm
  • Last Updated: Feb 19, 2019 - 3:51pm