The possibility that a huge tsunami of 120 meters in height was once occurring on Mars

It was thought that a vast ocean had spread to Mars before, but there was a doubt that traces of the coastline which is the muddy of the sea can not be seen on the surface of Mars considered to be the sea. As a solution to this question, a hypothesis was issued that "a huge tsunami occurred on Mars 3.4 billion years ago, swallowing the coastline."

Tsunami waves extensively resurfaced the shorelines of an early Martian ocean: Scientific Reports
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep25106

Planetary Science InstituteAlexis P. Rodriguez et al. 'S international research group found that the topography that supports the occurrence of two huge tsunamis within a relatively short period of several million years on Mars of 3.4 billion years ago It was announced in the scientific journal Scientific Reports.

Researchers analyzed the topography of the northern part of Mars using observational data from Martian satellite probe and found a topography that is accumulating so as to rise obliquely upward on the slopes of the mountain. Searching for the cause, he said that he caught up with two huge craters. The crater was thought to have been born by a collision of meteorite having a diameter of 30 kilometers, and the tsunami generated by the collision of the meteorite pushed the rocks near the coastline in the mountain direction, so that the above-mentioned terrain was born It is inferred.

Red line is the line where the first tsunami reached the line where black was the second tsunami reached.


It is thought that the ocean was once existed in the northern hemisphere of Mars, but in some places it was pointed out that no trace of the coastline that should occur along a certain altitude can be seen. It is reasonable to think that the disappearance of this coastline was created by the generation of the huge tsunami proposed by the research group.

The simulation of the research group showed that the height of the tsunami caused by the first meteorite collision could have reached as much as 120 meters at the maximum. The range eroded by the tsunami is estimated to be 100,000 square kilometers to 100,000 square kilometers.


Although the temperature of Mars at that time when the second gigantic tsunami occurred was below freezing point, it is thought that the sea of ​​Mars existed in liquid because the salt concentration was high. The water pushed out by the second tsunami is broken pieces of ice, and it is pointed out that traces of former life forms may be confirmed by analyzing this ice.