Contemporary Liquid Water On Mars?: Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

EA49CH07_Wray ARjats.
cls November 18, 2020 11:57
Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

Contemporary Liquid
Water on Mars?
James J. Wray
Access provided by Carleton University (Canada) on 12/01/20. For personal use only.
Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2021.49. Downloaded from www.annualreviews.org
School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta,

Georgia 30332, USA; email: jwray@gatech.edu
Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2021. 49:141–71 Keywords

The Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences is
Mars, liquid water, brines, planetary geology, surface processes,
online at earth.annualreviews.org
astrobiology
https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-072420-
071823 Abstract
Copyright © 2021 by Annual Reviews.
The martian surface preserves a record of aqueous fluids throughout the
All rights reserved
planet’s history, but when, where, and even whether such fluids exist at the
contemporary surface remains an area of ongoing research. Large water vol-
umes remain on the planet today, but mostly bound in minerals or frozen in
the subsurface, with limited direct evidence for aquifers. A role for water
has been suggested to explain active surface processes monitored by orbital
and landed spacecraft, such as gullies and slope streaks across a range of lat-
itudes; however, dry mechanisms appear at least equally plausible for many
active slopes. The low modern atmospheric density and cold surface temper-
atures challenge models for producing sufficient volumes of water to do the
observed geomorphic work. The seeming ubiquity of salts in martian soils
facilitates liquid stability but also has implications for the habitability of any
such liquids.
A thin modern atmosphere and low temperatures make pure liquid wa-
ter unstable on the surface of modern Mars.
Widespread salts could enhance liquid durability by lowering the freez-
ing point and slowing evaporation.
Dielectric measurements suggest active brines deep beneath the south
pole and, in transient thin films, within shallow polar soils.
Some characteristics of gullies, recurring slope lineae, and other active
features challenge both current wet and dry formation models.
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141
, Review in Advance first posted on

November 30, 2020. (Changes may
still occur before final publication.)
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1. INTRODUCTION
Liquid water is the sine qua non for life as we know it. The oft-cited shortlist for life’s essential
ingredients (e.g., Domagal-Goldman & Wright et al. 2016) is (a) an energy source, (b) biochemical
building blocks, and (c) a solvent. Energy sources used by life on Earth are solar or chemical (redox),
but other options may be possible including electrical energy (e.g., Reynolds et al. 1983), thermal
energy (e.g., Muller & Schulze-Makuch 2006), or radioactivity (Adam 2007). C, H, N, O, P, and S
are the fundamental building blocks of all terran biochemistry, but substitutions such as As for P
(Wolfe-Simon et al. 2009) or even Si in the structural role of C (e.g., Bains 2004) have long been
widely discussed. These building blocks must collide and react at reasonable rates, which a liquid
solvent substantially facilitates (Benner et al. 2004). H2 O tops any a priori list of potential solvents
due to numerous advantages including its cosmic abundance, large temperature range of liquid
stability, high heat capacity, and solubility of a wide range of compounds.
Liquid water’s perceived supremacy has led to its early and persistent adoption as the defining
characteristic of a habitable zone (HZ) in our Solar System or others (Hart 1978, Kasting et al.
1993). Specifically, the conventional HZ is that range of distances from a star at which a terrestrial
planet could have surface temperatures within the thermodynamic stability range of liquid H2 O.
Any closer to the star, a runaway greenhouse effect would evaporate all surface water, whereas
beyond the HZ, no concentration of greenhouse gases is sufficient to raise surface temperature
above 0°C (Kopparapu et al. 2013). Assuming H2 O or CO2 as the primary greenhouse gases,
an estimate of the HZ can be made for any star of measured temperature and luminosity, with
planetary mass as a secondary consideration (Kopparapu et al. 2014). Recent extrasolar planet
discoveries have added several HZ planets to the initially brief list of those present within our
Solar System: Earth and Mars (Figure 1).
As first noted by Rasool & De Bergh (1970), Earth is actually quite close to the inner boundary
of our Solar System’s HZ. Mars, by contrast, even today resides closer to the outer boundary, and
in its early years it fell beyond this calculated boundary due to the younger Sun’s lower luminosity.
The low mass of Mars also puts it in an interesting zone of planetary parameter space: smaller than
any HZ exoplanets confirmed to date (Figure 1), but this is likely due to the high-mass bias of
most detection methods. Wordsworth (2016, p. 400) argued that “Mars tells us more about the
habitability of low-mass planets than the habitability of planets that are far from their host stars,”
although both attributes have shaped its fate. Recent evidence (Suárez Mascareño et al. 2020) for
a less than 0.3 Earth-mass neighbor to the nearest HZ exoplanet, Proxima Centauri b, only adds
further urgency to the still-debated question: Does contemporary Mars actually have liquid water
on its surface?
This review explores the evidence for and against aqueous fluids throughout martian history.
As described in Section 2, evidence for liquids on or near the surface in ancient times has been
documented for decades and now seems incontrovertible. Most of this early water has since frozen
or escaped to space; Section 3 provides an overview of how much H2 O is known to remain on the
planet today, in what forms, and where. The next two sections discuss in detail the suite of landed
(Section 4) and orbital (Section 5) spacecraft observations that have been argued to be evidence
for contemporary liquid water. Section 6 closes with a brief perspective on the current state of the
debate and on the prospects for near-term progress via upcoming observations.
2. PAST LIQUID WATER ON MARS

Evidence for martian water in some form is far from new. Bright polar caps were discovered tele-
scopically in the seventeenth century, although whether they were mostly H2 O or CO2 ice was
·.•�-
not fully resolved until the twenty-first century (Kieffer et al. 1976, Plaut et al. 2007, Zuber et al.
142 Wray

10
GJ 667 C c
GJ 667 C f GJ 667 C f
Planet mass (M⊕)
GJ 1061 d
Proxima Centauri b Teegarden c TRAPPIST-1 g
Earth
1
0 0.25 0.5 0.75 1
TRAPPIST-1 f
TRAPPIST-1 e
Mars
0.1
Position within HZ
Figure 1
Masses and positions of known likely rocky planets within their respective circumstellar habitable zones
(HZs). Minimum masses are plotted for all HZ planets for which this quantity has been measured as less
than 5 Mࣷ . HZ orbital ranges are calculated based on stellar luminosity and temperature as described by
Kopparapu et al. (2014), using their 0.1 Mࣷ coefficients for Mars, 5 Mࣷ coefficients for planets of minimum
mass greater than 3 Mࣷ , and 1 Mࣷ coefficients for all others. Each planet’s orbital semimajor axis has been
normalized linearly to range from 0 (inner HZ edge) to 1 (outer HZ edge). Data from Planet. Habitability
Lab. (2020).
2007). Dark regions identified around the same time were incorrectly interpreted (and named) as
seas, like the lunar maria. In the nineteenth century, Giovanni Schiaparelli recorded features he
called lakes and canali (channels); the latter would be fancifully interpreted by Percival Lowell as
canals built by intelligent Martians. Just prior to the spacecraft era, variations in surface albedo
patterns were widely attributed to seasonal vegetation (e.g., Slipher 1962). Yet the first images
returned from Mars by Mariner 4 instead showed a densely cratered surface, with no evidence
for substantial geomorphic action by liquid water for billions of years (Leighton et al. 1965). It
is sobering to ponder what we would have missed if Mars exploration were halted after this one
successful flyby mission, as has thus far been the case for some outer Solar System planets. How-
ever, Mariners 6 and 7 would soon hint at a more complex geologic history, imaging some craters
modified by unknown processes (Murray et al. 1971) and some terrains lacking craters entirely
(Sharp et al. 1971).
One Earth-Mars synodic period later, Mariner 9 revealed dendritic valley networks, meander-
ing and braided channels attributed to fluvial processes, as well as sparsely cratered volcanic and
tectonic landforms implying surface activity late in the planet’s history (McCauley et al. 1972). The
hypothesis that the valleys and channels were water carved was not without controversy; proposed
alternative formation mechanisms included extensional fracturing (Schumm 1974), glacial pro-
cesses (Lucchitta 1982), or flows driven by liquid CO2 (Lambert & Chamberlain 1978, Hoffman
·.•�-
2000). As discussed below, CO2 -driven flow has reemerged as a favored mechanism for formation
www.annualreviews.org • Contemporary Liquid Water on Mars? 143

of smaller-scale erosional features on contemporary Mars, while glacial sculpting is implicated for
the formation of dendritic valleys on Pluto (Moore et al. 2016). Modern understanding of Mars’s
geologic history seems incompatible with Yung & Pinto’s (1978) suggestion of liquid hydrocar-
bons as the erosive agent, yet they ably fill this role on Saturn’s moon Titan (Tomasko et al. 2005).
Lava-carved channels sharing at least some of the features seen on Mars have been found on Mer-
cury (Byrne et al. 2013), Venus (Baker et al. 1992), Earth’s Moon (Hulme 1973), and Jupiter’s Io
(Schenk & Williams 2004). Carr (1974) provided an early discussion of morphological and strati-
graphic criteria for distinguishing fluvial from volcanic channels on Mars, and modern observa-
tions continue to feed debate on this origin question for particular martian channels (e.g., Jaeger
et al. 2010, Leverington 2011). While the consensus of many detailed studies is now that most
large martian valley networks and channels were carved by aqueous fluids (e.g., Baker 1982, Carr
1995), this history reminds us that (a) geomorphologic equifinality requires multiple hypotheses
to be considered for any landform’s origin, and (b) alternative models often prove relevant in other
planetary environments even if not in that for which they were first proposed.
Water-rock interactions on early Mars should have affected not only its geomorphology but
also its mineralogy, with the conditions of alteration (temperature, pH, salinity) potentially infer-
able from specific mineral assemblages. Meteorites from Mars contain minor (<1% by volume)
clays, sulfates, halides, and carbonates (Bridges et al. 2001), and chemical analyses from the Viking
and Mars Pathfinder landing sites suggested these minerals may be widely distributed in martian
soils (Clark & Van Hart 1981, Wänke et al. 2001). However, their origin was poorly constrained
until larger concentrations could be found in their original geologic context. The Thermal Emis-
sion Spectrometer on board Mars Global Surveyor identified regional concentrations of more
than 10% crystalline gray hematite (Christensen et al. 2001), one of which (Meridiani Planum)
was chosen as the landing site for the Mars Exploration Rover (MER) Opportunity, whose in
situ investigations revealed an ancient aqueous environment for hematite formation via diagen-
esis of sandstones comprising up to ∼40% sulfates, including jarosite (Squyres et al. 2004). On
the other side of Mars, MER Spirit encountered greater than 90% pure opaline silica deposits
inferred to have formed in a volcanic hydrothermal environment (Squyres et al. 2008). Mean-
while, the Thermal Emission Imaging System on NASA’s 2001 Mars Odyssey mission was used
to map hundreds of chloride-rich (∼15–20%) salt flats across the same ancient regions of Mars
in which most valley networks have been identified (Osterloo et al. 2010). Observing at shorter
near-infrared wavelengths, the Observatoire pour la Minéralogie, l’Eau, les Glaces et l’Activité
(OMEGA) on Mars Express identified not only many more concentrations of layered hydrated
sulfates but also phyllosilicates (Poulet et al. 2005). The apparent segregation of these two mineral
classes into terrains of different ages prompted a model positing a period of neutral-to-alkaline
phyllosilicate formation in the Early to Middle Noachian [prior to ∼3.8 Gyr ago (according to
Hartmann & Neukum 2001)], followed by a more acidic period of sulfate formation from the
Late Noachian into the Late Hesperian (∼3.8–3.5 Gyr ago), with only minor alteration forming
anhydrous iron oxides since then (Bibring et al. 2006). Phyllosilicates on Earth form in weather-
ing and sedimentary environments over timescales of thousands to millions of years (e.g., Eberl
1984, Price et al. 2005), suggesting persistent aqueous fluids on early Mars. Consistently long
timescales are implied by the sedimentary structures identified in several ancient martian basins
that once held standing bodies of water (e.g., Moore et al. 2003, Wray et al. 2011, Schon et al.
2012, Grotzinger et al. 2015). Some phyllosilicates could have formed more rapidly or without
surface liquids (e.g., Tornabene et al. 2013, Cannon et al. 2017), but others show specific mineral
sequences similar to those that form in continually wet environments on Earth over millions of
years (Carter et al. 2015).
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144 Wray

Yet the survival until present of diagenetically underdeveloped minerals such as jarosite
(Elwood Madden et al. 2009), opaline silica, and smectites—the most common type of martian
phyllosilicate (Mustard et al. 2008, Carter et al. 2013)—argues for severely limited aqueous inter-
actions over the past few billions of years since these minerals originally formed (Tosca & Knoll
2009). There have been regional or local exceptions, such as the ∼40% gypsum sand dunes sur-
rounding Mars’s north pole (Fishbaugh et al. 2007) and sulfate/silica deposits in and around Valles
Marineris (e.g., Milliken et al. 2008) that may in some cases have formed as recently as within the
past ∼100 Myr (Mangold et al. 2010b). In Gale crater, radioisotope measurements by the Curios-
ity rover suggest sulfate formation from subsurface fluids some ∼2–3 Gyr ago (Martin et al. 2017).
Analogously, smaller-scale valleys and fluvio-lacustrine deposits dated to the Amazonian Period
(past ∼3 Gyr) have been identified in several regions of Mars (e.g., Fassett et al. 2010; Grant &
Wilson 2011, 2019), with some of these relatively recent episodes of surface water activity directly
linkable to volcanic activity (Gulick & Baker 1990), impact cratering (Williams & Malin 2008), or
favorable local microclimate (Dickson et al. 2009).

3. THE CONTEMPORARY H2 O INVENTORY

If ancient Mars was awash with aqueous fluids, then where did they go? In addition to imaging a
Moon-like surface, Mariner 4 also first accurately measured Mars’s total atmospheric pressure to
be 4–7 mbar, around the triple point of H2 O (Kliore et al. 1965). Modern topography revealed
that pressures up to ∼12 mbar occur seasonally at the lowest surface elevations, just high enough
for liquid water to avoid boiling, although it would still be unstable to evaporation (Haberle et al.
2001), as is the case in most environments on Earth (Hecht 2002). Despite being 95% CO2 , this
atmosphere provides insufficient greenhouse warming to compensate for Mars receiving less than
half Earth’s solar flux, so the surface is typically also below 0°C (Figure 2). As first described in
detail by Ingersoll (1970), this combination of thin air over a cold planet renders pure liquid H2 O
thermodynamically implausible. Much more detailed modern thermal models generally reach the
same conclusion (e.g., Schorghofer 2020).
How then to explain all the evidence for past water? Perhaps those ancient fluids were saline
(e.g., Fairén et al. 2009), which would have lowered both their freezing temperature and their
evaporation rate (Ingersoll 1970). Transient heating of ground ice by magma (e.g., Squyres et al.
1987) or by impacts (e.g., Newsom et al. 1996)—both of which were more prominent on ancient
Mars than in the present day—could have produced local to regional meltwater; however, this
seems unlikely to explain all of the ancient valleys, especially those that initiate at topographic
highs, nor the inferred persistence of flow. Perhaps the climate was globally warmer? As recently
reviewed by Kite (2019), the evidence for higher mean annual temperatures on early Mars is am-
biguous. Solar heating was up to ∼30% less efficient then (Sagan & Mullen 1972), implying that
the atmosphere must have been very much different from today in order for ambient temperatures
to actually be warmer. Geologic evidence does suggest an atmosphere ∼3.6 Gyr ago that was at
least ∼20 times denser than today’s (Manga et al. 2012), and atmospheric isotope ratios suggest
early escape of an even thicker atmosphere (e.g., Jakosky & Phillips 2001). If such an atmosphere
was also CO2 -dominated, then another portion of it could have been sequestered via carbonate
mineralization (Kahn 1985), for which modern searches are finding increasing evidence (Wray
et al. 2016). However, it is far from clear that even more than 1 bar of atmosphere containing the
greenhouse gases most plausible for early Mars could sustain global average temperatures greater
than 0°C (Wordsworth 2016).
Thus we return to contemporary Mars, bearing in mind that understanding whether/how water
·.•�-
can be liquid there now appears a comparable challenge to understanding the same for ancient

10 2
10 1 LIQUID
10 0
ICE Earth T, PTotal range
10 –1
10 –2
Pressure, P (bars) Mars T, PTotal range
10 –3
10 –4
10 –5 VAPOR
10 –6
Mars T, PH2O range

10 –7
10 –8
10 –9
10 –10
–150 –100 –50 0 50 100
Temperature, T (°C)
Figure 2
Range of surface temperatures (T) and pressures (P) on Earth and Mars compared to the phase diagram of
H2 O. The lowest pressures on each planet are found only at the highest mountaintops, so typical conditions
are those plotting near the top of each box range. Some places on Mars achieve PTotal above the H2 O triple
point, stabilizing water (for a narrow temperature range) against boiling. But with PH2 O values less than
0.1% of this (e.g., Martínez et al. 2017), pure water at the surface is never stable against evaporation.
Mars. The modern atmosphere contains only a few to tens of micrometers of precipitable H2 O
(Kaplan et al. 1964), varying temporally and laterally (e.g., Jakosky & Farmer 1982, Smith 2002,
Trokhimovskiy et al. 2015) as well as vertically, although characterization of this latter dimension
has only recently begun (Fedorova et al. 2009, Clancy et al. 2017, Vandaele et al. 2019). These
variations are largely driven by exchange with the much larger (near) surface reservoirs of solid
H2 O, most notably the aforementioned polar caps. Topographic and radar-based studies of the
north and south polar layered (ice-dust) deposits agree on a total mass equivalent to that of a global
H2 O layer ∼20 m thick (Plaut et al. 2007); this estimate is reduced negligibly by the more recent
discovery of massive (but much smaller) CO2 ice deposits within the south polar layered deposits,
which are nonetheless noteworthy in that they suggest a total atmospheric pressure nearly double
the present value was possible just ∼0.5 Myr ago (Phillips et al. 2011).
A more loosely constrained but potentially even larger reservoir is that of ice just beneath the
visible surface. Mars exhibits a range of morphologic features attributable to the presence of shal-
low subsurface ice, first clearly identifiable in Viking Orbiter images (Carr & Schaber 1977). These
include scattered mid-latitude lobate or valley/crater-filling deposits (Squyres 1979), now deter-
mined to be debris-covered glaciers, which may contain an additional ∼1 m global equivalent layer
(GEL) of H2 O ice (Levy et al. 2014, Karlsson et al. 2015). At higher latitudes (>60°N), a major-
ity of the martian landscape exhibits polygonal patterning or rock self-organization reminiscent
of permafrost environments on Earth, consistent with thermal contraction cycling of ubiquitous
·.•�-
146 Wray

ice-cemented soils extending to at least ∼10 m depth (Mellon et al. 2008). A large percentage of
terrains in the ∼30–60° latitudes of both hemispheres show textures suggestive of geologically
recent (perhaps cyclical) removal of ice from the uppermost meters there (Mustard et al. 2001),
consistent with diffusion-condensation models of H2 O in the martian regolith over approximately
million-year timescales that predict its present-day stability at (only) high latitudes versus mid-
latitude stability during higher-obliquity periods (Mellon & Jakosky 1995). Mid-latitude ice may
still be present at greater depths or anywhere that a diffusive barrier prevents equilibration with
the modern atmosphere. In fact, local to regional deposits of nearly pure ice have been identified
down to 39° latitude where exposed by new impact craters (Byrne et al. 2009, Dundas et al. 2014)
or in erosional escarpments (Dundas et al. 2018), or inferred from seasonal frost distributions
(Vincendon et al. 2010), geomorphology, and radar sounding (e.g., Bramson et al. 2015, Dundas
et al. 2015a, Viola et al. 2015, Stuurman et al. 2016). Landing at 68°N, Phoenix excavated a dozen
soil trenches within decimeters of each other, one of which excavated nearly pure ice whereas the
others were consistent with lower abundances of pore-filling ice (Smith et al. 2009). Integrating
this heterogeneous distribution to estimate a total H2 O budget is challenging, but at least for the
terrain poleward of ∼50–60° latitude in which lower radar reflectivity is attributable to ice in the
topmost few decameters [consistent with prior measurements of these regions via thermal inertia,
gamma and neutron spectroscopy (Boynton et al. 2002, Feldman et al. 2004, Bandfield & Feldman
2008)], Mouginot et al. (2010) estimated a total ∼5–10 m GEL of H2 O. But this ground ice could
extend much deeper than yet probed directly at any wavelength; for example, based on rheologi-
cal modeling of creep deformation inferred to have softened craters throughout the martian mid-
latitudes, Jankowski & Squyres (1993) estimated ∼100 m GEL of H2 O ice stored in the uppermost
kilometer of the subsurface from latitudes ±30° poleward. The latitudinal and size distributions
of rampart or single-layer ejecta craters confirm this inference of an ice-rich upper kilometer of
crust (e.g., Barlow & Bradley 1990, Costard & Kargel 1995).
The above GEL estimates are still about an order of magnitude less than the water budget
deduced from Mars’s ancient water-carved channels and valleys, or from geochemical arguments
regarding how much water should have been delivered during planetary accretion (for a review,
see Lasue et al. 2013). It has been hypothesized that much of the missing water could have been
captured mineralogically via water-rock interactions (e.g., Chassefière et al. 2013). OMEGA in-
frared spectroscopy suggests ∼3–5 wt% H2 O in the surficial materials across the low latitudes
of Mars (increasing to ∼10 wt% at high latitudes), with local and regional variations correlated
to the mineralogy (Audouard et al. 2014). Even at the lower end of this range, if such hydration
extends at least several kilometers into the martian crust, then hundreds of meters of GEL H2 O
could be thus accommodated (Mustard et al. 2012). In summary, even though much has been lost
to space (e.g., Mahaffy et al. 2015), there is still a large amount of water on contemporary Mars.
We now turn to the evidence for and against its occasional presence in liquid form.
4. IN SITU OBSERVATIONS
Strictly speaking, our titular question can clearly be answered affirmatively: There is liquid water
on contemporary Mars, if only in the mono-layers known to form at ice and soil grain interfaces
well below 0°C (e.g., Jakosky et al. 2003, Möhlmann 2008). Yet nano-scale liquids alone fall short
of what we envision in describing Mars as potentially habitable and seem vastly inadequate to
explain all the chemical and physical effects that water has had on at least the ancient martian
materials. We look instead for evidence of its macroscopic effects on the modern surface, starting
with the data returned by spacecraft that have successfully landed there.
·.•�-

4.1. Salts in the Soils

As discussed by Clark & Van Hart (1981), the Viking landers found sulfate and Cl and Br soil
concentrations that were both elevated relative to expected bulk planetary averages and much
more variable, from one sample to another, than other (major) elements, suggesting their speci-
ation in the form of highly soluble salts that had at some time been mobilized by water within
these soils. The Spirit and Opportunity rovers found similar soil volatile concentrations but also
large abundances of olivine, a mineral that is comparatively readily weathered by water (Yen et al.
2005). McGlynn et al. (2012) argued that this apparent contradiction is best resolved if these soils
are physical mixtures of ancient altered (S- and Cl-rich) materials with primary igneous minerals,
although Karunatillake et al. (2010) found simple mixing models inadequate to explain soil chem-
ical complexity and posited “a subtle but significant role to postdepositional chemical alteration
of soil.” Yen et al. (2005) noted that highly soluble Br was more concentrated in the subsurface
(by factors of 2 to 30+) than in surface soils, although Karunatillake et al. (2013) proposed that
this could be due to atmospheric, rather than aqueous, processes (while still implicating the latter
for observed variations in S/Cl). Haskin et al. (2005) observed that variations in S, Cl, and Br are
also concentrated in coatings and veins developed on or in igneous rocks examined by Spirit. All
of these authors noted the dry conditions prevalent today at these landing sites and generally at-
tributed any salt mobilization by geologically recent aqueous activity to a period of higher martian
obliquity, prompting the question of whether liquids last present some millions of years ago can
truly be considered contemporary.
Spirit made especially detailed observations of the soils in which it ultimately became mired
and where it remains today, finding evidence for approximately centimeter-scale stratification of
less soluble hematite and Ca-sulfate salts overlying layers enriched in more soluble ferric sul-
fates. Arvidson et al. (2010) argued while these salts may be ancient, their stratigraphy and its
conformation to the modern wind-blown topography demonstrate recent fluid percolation (and
salt dissolution/reprecipitation) from the surface downward. Hydrated ferric sulfates observed in
a similar stratigraphic sequence elsewhere led Wang et al. (2008) to suggest that these highly hy-
drated salts could buffer the modern subsurface humidity to higher levels; higher relative humidity
(RH) would of course broaden the range of conditions under which liquid water might form and
persist there. This hypothesis takes on greater importance in light of the Phoenix mission’s dis-
covery of perchlorate salts, which are highly deliquescent (Hecht et al. 2009)—that is, they can
absorb water vapor to spontaneously form liquid brines (e.g., Gough et al. 2011). Cull et al. (2010)
reported a patchy distribution of these perchlorates, interpreted as evidence for geologically re-
cent meltwater redistributing them in the shallow subsurface. Reanalysis of data from both Viking
landers (Navarro-González et al. 2010) and subsequent data from Curiosity (Leshin et al. 2013)
have indicated chlorate and/or perchlorate in soils at all three of those sites as well; some fraction
of the Cl observed at other prior Mars landing sites could also plausibly have been in this form.
Phoenix soils also contained carbonates (∼3–5 wt%) argued to have formed via aqueous processes
(Boynton et al. 2009). Both the perchlorates and carbonates could act as cements to form the
pervasive crusts and clods observed by Phoenix, reminiscent of the cohesive soils explored three
decades earlier by Viking Lander 2, the highest-latitude site (48°N) investigated to date besides
Phoenix. Arvidson et al. (2009) argued that these clods may result from cementing or even just
hydrogen bonding between grains that develops during occasional (seasonal?) episodes of elevated
RH and resulting thicker unfrozen interlayers of adsorbed H2 O (i.e., perhaps microscopic liquid
volumes can have macroscopic effects). Perhaps ironically, microscopic studies of soil particle sizes
at the Phoenix site nonetheless implied a limited total duration of exposure to liquid there “much
less than 5,000 years” (Pike et al. 2011).
·.•�-
148 Wray

4.2. Droplets and Dark Streaks

A subset of the Phoenix science team reported much more direct evidence for present-day liquid
water, in the form of macroscopic droplets on the lander (Rennó et al. 2009). Phoenix’s Robotic
Arm Camera provided detailed images of one of the lander leg struts, adhered to which were
numerous approximately centimeter-scale particles of martian surface material disturbed during
landing. Some of these appeared distinctly rounded (spheroidal), and changes were observed over
the few months of mission lifetime. One large spheroid was observed to darken (attributed to
liquefaction) and later to “disappear almost completely” (attributed to dripping off the strut) or
“partially merge” with an adjacent spheroid (Rennó et al. 2009). In addition, growth of several
other spheroids over time was observed, at millimeter scales only but argued by Rennó et al.
(2009) to be multiple times the image resolution and thus significant. The growth trends versus
time were consistent with trends in RH also measured by Phoenix, supporting the interpretation
that these spheroids were droplets of deliquescent brine.
Independent supporting evidence for active brines at the Phoenix site came from analysis of
permittivity data from its Thermal and Electrical Conductivity Probe (Stillman & Grimm 2011).
Permittivity increases were measured during the warmer daytime hours, consistent with melting
of salty ice that subsequently evaporated or refroze in the evening. These patterns were observed
at two locations but not at another mere centimeters away, implying a heterogeneous distribution
of salt and/or ice. Stillman & Grimm (2011) described several factors that could stabilize such
brines (at least for timescales of hours) even at modern conditions, such as adjacent ice buffering
pore RH.
At the lower latitudes of all other successful Mars landings to date, such shallow ice is not
present. But the evidence for deliquescent salts has led to aqueous hypotheses being presented
for other phenomena observed there, such as centimeter- to meter-scale flows within Gale crater.
Dickson et al. (2016) cataloged 18 “recent localized downslope movements of fine grained mate-
rial” from images taken during the first few years of the mission (Figure 3a). These flow features
generally appear darker than adjacent undisturbed fines. Dickson and colleagues proposed that
they could be either dry granular flows on slopes at the angle of repose or sediment-laden brine
flows triggered by salt deliquescence. Noting that even larger dark streaks have been imaged on
Gale slopes from orbit—with some evidence for streak growth or fading between successive im-
ages (Dundas & McEwen 2015)—Anderson et al. (2019) have used rover images to monitor some
of these slopes but have observed no newly formed streaks. They hypothesized a dry grain flow
origin for the features but noted that what triggers these flows has not yet been determined.
Such observations in search of low-latitude aqueous processes have been varyingly motivated
or discouraged by laboratory studies of brine formation, particularly via deliquescence. This
process allows stable brines to form whenever temperature and RH exceed certain thresholds,
whose values depend on the particular salts present. Curiosity provided the first full martian
year of temperature and RH measurements from the surface, which Martín-Torres et al. (2015)
analyzed to conclude that conditions consistent with Ca-perchlorate brine stability are present in
the upper centimeters of Gale crater soils for hours at a time during certain seasons. However, that
determination was based on a more favorable early calibration of Curiosity’s RH data and assumed
a lower eutectic (freezing) temperature than that measured in laboratory studies of pure Ca per-
chlorates (Martínez et al. 2017), although a multi-salt mixture could conceivably have such a low
eutectic temperature, and furthermore Ca-perchlorate and other Mars-relevant brines have been
observed to resist freezing even at temperatures well below their thermodynamically predicted
eutectic points (Toner et al. 2014). Updating the analysis and applying a more rigorous treatment
of RH with respect to liquid specifically, Rivera-Valentín et al. (2018) found that Curiosity’s
·.•�-

a b c
50 m 200 m
d e
20 m 200 m
Figure 3
Active or recent slope flows on Mars. (a) Centimeter-scale flow in Gale crater (Mastcam image 0712MR0030300290402561E01,
courtesy of NASA/JPL/MSSS). (b) Dark dune streaks formed during spotty defrosting in late northern winter at 61°N (HiRISE image
ESP_058829_2420). (c) Gullies incised into Sirenum Fossae pole-facing trough wall, 39°S (HiRISE ESP_058755_1410). (d) Equator-
facing recurring slope lineae during late summer in Hellas basin, 41°S (HiRISE ESP_058773_1385). (e) Slope streaks in Arabia Terra
exhibiting a range of albedos (approximate ages?), 12°N (HiRISE ESP_048567_1920). HiRISE images courtesy of
NASA/JPL/University of Arizona.
surface temperature and RH measurements do not overlap the brine stability field; however,
their thermal modeling showed that brine stability in Gale’s subsurface (top few centimeters) was
possible for ∼1 h/day on the coldest days of the year, under surface materials having relatively
high albedo and low thermal inertia. This seemingly narrow range of conditions for brine stability
is exacerbated by experiments showing that kinetics of bulk Ca-perchlorate brine formation via
deliquescence may be prohibitively slow (Fischer et al. 2014), a finding divergent from what had
been measured in prior experiments with individual salt grains/droplets (Nuding et al. 2014).
However, Nikolakakos & Whiteway (2015) observed bulk deliquescence of Mg perchlorate within
minutes of providing the appropriate temperature and RH, whereas Heinz et al. (2016) found
that days of sufficiently high RH were needed to achieve deliquescence even at temperatures
much higher than those available on Mars (and with different rates for different salts). In any case,
·.•�-
recalibrated data from the Phoenix lander—the one other surface mission to directly measure
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RH to date—revealed that temperature and RH at the surface did occasionally plot within the
Ca-perchlorate brine stability field, although only for up to 6 h overnight (Fischer et al. 2019). Of
course, at the Phoenix site there is also shallow ice available to form brines via melting instead of
by deliquescence; experiments by Fischer et al. (2014) found the former to be much less kinetically
inhibited.
While the laboratory studies provide testable hypotheses for how liquid water might form on
contemporary Mars, landed missions to date have provided limited opportunities to test them.
This is in part by design, as international policy requires more stringent spacecraft sterilization
protocols for any mission that would target a landing site “where liquid water is present or may
occur” today (Beaty et al. 2006, p. 678 Rummel et al. 2014). We therefore now turn to orbital
observations, which allow hypothesis testing across a wider range of surface environments.
5. ORBITAL OBSERVATIONS
5.1. Subsurface Sounding
Cognizant of geomorphic equifinality (as discussed in Section 2 in the context of ancient martian
valley formation), we might hope to avoid such ambiguities by seeking a direct detection of con-
temporary liquid water, rather than mere traces that it could have left on the landscape. Liquid
water has a much higher dielectric permittivity than frozen H2 O or rock and hence has been a pri-
mary scientific target for radar sounding of the martian subsurface (e.g., Orosei et al. 2015). Alas,
across most of the planet, no such detection has been made to date. Although the Mars Advanced
Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS) onboard Mars Express is in princi-
ple sensitive to subsurface materials as deep as ∼11 km, Farrell et al. (2009) noted that the depth
probed in practice may be substantially less, given plausible conductivities of the upper crustal ma-
terials. Modern estimates of geothermal heat flow suggest that the depth to groundwater would be
typically several kilometers even at low latitudes and greater toward the poles (Clifford et al. 2010),
potentially putting any stable aquifers beyond the radar’s reach. Local heterogeneity is likely, but
targeted searches with the higher-resolution Shallow Radar instrument on Mars Reconnaissance
Orbiter (MRO) have also failed to detect subsurface liquids (e.g., Nunes et al. 2010). Clutter in-
troduced into the reflected radar signals from rough surface topography is an additional challenge
for effectively probing the subsurface in many regions of interest.
Surface clutter and volumetric signal losses are minimal within the ice-rich polar layered de-
posits. Early MARSIS measurements identified a strong radar return from up to ∼3.7 km deep
within the south polar layered deposits, as might be expected from a basal melted layer. Plaut et al.
(2007) disfavored the liquid hypothesis because of the low temperatures inferred at this location,
but that was prior to Phoenix’s discovery of perchlorates in the (north) polar region that could
dramatically lower melting temperatures. Following a dedicated radar mapping campaign, a sub-
set of the MARSIS team recently presented evidence for an ∼20-km-wide area beneath the south
polar layered deposits exhibiting a strong radar return from ∼1.5 km depth (Orosei et al. 2018).
They argued that the permittivity values inferred for this reflector are so high as to be consistent
only with liquid, or liquid-saturated materials. They acknowledged that the temperature of this
liquid would likely be close to −70°C, near the eutectic minimum for perchlorate brines. Sori &
Bramson (2019) have since presented a more detailed thermal model of this scenario, finding that
even reaching this eutectic temperature requires anomalously high local heat flow, implicating a
subsurface magma intrusion there within the past ∼1 Myr or less. Arnold et al. (2019) found that
the regional topography and ice thickness do not predict formation of a subsurface lake at the
·.•�-
location inferred by MARSIS but also do not rule one out.

While tantalizing, this hypothesized subglacial lake’s inaccessibility—buried deep beneath the
coldest terrain on Mars—suggests that any direct sampling of it would occur only in the very
distant future at best. Furthermore, while it could represent the nearest known stable liquid reser-
voir beyond Earth, several outer Solar System bodies have aqueous oceans arguably more robustly
identified, more voluminous, and likely having chemical and thermophysical properties more com-
patible with life as we know it. We therefore return to our primary question herein of whether
and where aqueous fluids reach the contemporary martian surface.
5.2. Polar Dark Dune Streaks

Starting near the poles with their known abundance of (near-)surface H2 O (ice), an intriguing
class of features first noted in early images from the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) onboard Mars
Global Surveyor was relatively dark, decameter-scale spots identified as early defrosting areas in
springtime images of south polar terrain still mostly covered by seasonal CO2 ice (Malin et al.
1998). Malin & Edgett (2001) noted that these features first appear in late winter along the mar-
gins of sand dunes, each with a dark core surrounded by a brighter halo, both of which expand
outward over time until the spots eventually coalesce and the surface is fully defrosted. Piqueux
et al. (2003) described a similarly evolving set of dark spots localized to “spider-like” (now termed
araneiform) erosional features within the south polar “cryptic” region, which has thermophysical
properties consistent with transparent CO2 ice overlying a darker substrate. This arrangement led
Kieffer et al. (2006) to propose a solid-state greenhouse effect model for these features in which
sunlight penetrates through dry ice to be absorbed by darker buried sands, causing basal CO2 sub-
limation that erodes the araneiform channels and in places is vented explosively, distributing dark
sand across the surface to form the spots, with some subsequent redistribution by surface winds to
form streaks and fans. For spots formed on dunes, Gánti et al. (2003) observed that gravity-driven
flow additionally redistributes dark material downslope; they proposed an early alternative bio-
logical model for the seasonal dark spots, which for habitability would require liquid water, which
was interpreted as the driver for downslope flow to form the dark dune streaks. While this bio-
logical hypothesis as a whole does not meet the Sagan standard of extraordinary claims requiring
extraordinary evidence (as the authors indeed admitted), its suggestion of liquid water for streak
formation has since been further explored by them and others.
Images from MOC and from the newer High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment
(HiRISE) on MRO were analyzed by Horváth et al. (2009) and Kereszturi et al. (2009, 2010)
to document the meter-scale morphology and incremental growth patterns of dark dune streaks
around both martian poles (Figure 3b). The features were found to be active when regional tem-
peratures had begun rising above their wintertime lows, but precise temperatures were elusive as
the features are much smaller than the spatial footprint of orbiting thermal infrared sensors. These
authors enumerated geomorphic elements of the streaks, which they argued to be more consistent
with a meltwater contribution than with purely dry debris flows; for example, the brighter halos
were suggested to be refrozen H2 O frost. Kereszturi et al. (2011) used MRO’s Compact Reconnais-
sance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) to confirm H2 O ice within intermediate-toned
zones surrounding the dark cores of dune spots in Richardson crater, although no spectral evi-
dence for liquid H2 O or salts was found (the downslope flow streaks themselves were too small
for CRISM to resolve). The brightest halo materials were found instead to be consistent with re-
frozen CO2 frost (Kereszturi et al. 2011), suggesting the surface remains very cold while all these
features develop. Still, meltwater-driven flows have been observed on terrestrial dunes even when
the local ground temperatures are subfreezing everywhere but in the approximately decimeter-
·.•�-
scale dark materials in which melting occurs (Hooper & Dinwiddie 2014). On Mars, Pommerol
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et al. (2011) observed many more south polar regions of seasonal defrosting with HiRISE and
CRISM and found that Richardson crater was in fact the only site exhibiting detectable H2 O ice
signatures. In the north polar region, Pommerol et al. (2013) found that times and locations of dark
dune streak activity in fact had the locally strongest spectral signatures of CO2 ice (∼150 K, far
below the eutectic temperature of any measured brine). Meanwhile, detailed analyses of dark dune
streaks imaged at various sites found that they (a) overtop small ripples, implying approximately
meters/second flow velocities (Gardin et al. 2010) inconsistent with the viscous brine model pro-
posed by Möhlmann & Kereszturi (2010), and (b) coincide with active debris mobilization on dune
slopes (Hansen et al. 2011)—that is, they likely do not represent a mere staining of the surface.
The above observations collectively argue in favor of dry debris flows triggered by CO2 defrost-
ing as the most likely mechanism for forming most seasonal dark dune streaks on Mars, although
this single hypothesis may not readily account for every observation, for example, at Richardson
crater (Martínez et al. 2012). This is a theme that will recur in subsequent subsections: While it is
tempting to consider many sites in aggregate in order to maximize the observations available for
hypothesis testing, this can mislead us if processes in fact varied from site to site, and indeed in
some cases this approach clearly overconstrains the problem.
5.3. Gullies
Compared to the seasonal dark dune streaks, in the past 20 years at least one order of magnitude
more papers have been written about martian gullies. As first described by Malin & Edgett (2000),
gullies are approximately kilometer-scale landforms characterized by theater-shaped alcoves ta-
pering downslope into one or more channels, which empty into triangular aprons of material
deposited at the base of the slope (Figure 3c). Developed on the walls of craters, pits, and valleys,
these gullies are most abundant in the middle latitudes, with a preference for poleward-facing
slopes, although subsequent studies have found this slope preference to be latitude dependent
(e.g., Harrison et al. 2015). They are remarkably uncratered and overprint other “geologically
young” features such as sand ripples and polygonally patterned ground, indicating very recent
formation (Malin & Edgett 2000, p. 2332); intriguingly, those in the northern hemisphere appear
typically more degraded than their ∼10 times more numerous southern hemisphere counterparts
(Heldmann et al. 2007). Visually, they appear strikingly similar to debris flow/water-eroded hill-
sides in cold regions of Earth (e.g., Hartmann et al. 2003). Liquid CO2 was once again proposed as
an alternative driving fluid (Musselwhite et al. 2001) but generally considered more problematic
than H2 O (Stewart & Nimmo 2002); hence, most early hypotheses involved liquid water from
one or more sources. Regional clustering and the initiation of some gullies at distinct layers out-
cropping in crater walls suggested extant groundwater aquifers (Malin & Edgett 2001, Mellon
& Phillips 2001). Other gullies initiate at topographic highs, suggesting atmospheric sources of
H2 O, whether as seasonal frost (Hecht 2002), ground ice melted during higher obliquity (Costard
et al. 2002), or snowpack deposited during higher obliquity that is presently melting (Christensen
2003); subsequent modeling has found survival of such snowpack to the present day to be unlikely
(Williams et al. 2008), but melting at higher obliquities appears plausible (Williams et al. 2009).
While low-eutectic salts would enhance the stability of any such meltwater, the limited runout
lengths inferred from martian gully dimensions are arguably more consistent with relatively pure
H2 O than with brines (Heldmann et al. 2005).
Interpretation of all gullies as water carved became increasingly challenged by their discovery
in additional geologic (including equatorial) settings, leading Treiman (2003) to propose that they
form via dry flows of universally available fine-grained material. This hypothesis seems especially
·.•�-
well suited to the gullies identified on sand dunes around the same time (Reiss & Jaumann 2003),

although Mangold et al. (2003) noted that their sinuosity and flow lengths over shallow slopes seem
inconsistent with dry flow. Shinbrot et al. (2004) suggested that Mars’s lower gravity—and hence
reduced particle settling speeds—could give dry granular flows a more fluidized appearance, which
they replicated experimentally (albeit at centimeter scales). Echoing the interplanetary compar-
isons of larger-scale channels described in Section 2, Bart (2007) identified lunar landforms com-
prising alcoves, channels, and aprons developed on steep slopes; these seem almost certain to be
dry granular flows, and many more examples have since been found in higher-resolution Lunar
Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera images, showing some striking resemblance to martian gullies
(Kumar et al. 2013, Kokelaar et al. 2017). Perhaps most prescient of the pre-MRO dry gully hy-
potheses was that of Hoffman (2002), who focused on gullies poleward of 70°S, within the zone of
seasonal CO2 ice cover. Although such high-latitude gullies are typically less well developed than
those at lower latitudes (e.g., Harrison et al. 2015), Hoffman (2002) noted fresh-appearing albedo
features within them and argued for their present-day activity, likely occurring in a temperature
regime under which only CO2 (not H2 O) would be volatilized.

Malin et al. (2006) documented the first cases of clear changes at gully sites from one spacecraft
image to the next, confirming contemporary activity. One of the new bright deposits they reported
was subsequently analyzed by Pelletier et al. (2008), who found that models of dry granular flow
could reproduce its morphology as well as could sediment-rich wet flows. Over time, additional
gully changes were found; as Dundas et al. (2010) and Diniega et al. (2010) first reported, both dune
and bedrock gullies exhibit changes preferentially constrained to the coldest seasons, when CO2
frost would still be present on their surfaces. Dundas et al. (2012, 2015b) showed that such con-
temporary activity includes not only deposition but also erosion of new linear or sinuous channels
in both dune and crater wall settings, and transport of some bright but vanishing blocks of ma-
terial interpreted as CO2 ice. These observations suggest that this contemporary activity is likely
driven by CO2 vapor fluidization (e.g., Hugenholtz 2008, Cedillo-Flores et al. 2011, Diniega et al.
2013, Pilorget & Forget 2016), and Dundas et al. (2012, 2015b) have estimated that integrating
the rates of observed activity over the ∼1 Myr estimated ages of gullies (e.g., Schon et al. 2009)
could fully account for the total volumes that they have eroded and transported.
The lingering question is whether—as geologists such as Sir Charles Lyell have argued for
centuries—the present-day activity in gullies is indeed representative of their past. There are rea-
sons to doubt that this uniformitarian view is fully applicable here, beginning with the insolation
changes that Mars is known to undergo as its obliquity and other properties oscillate over relevant
timescales. Numerous studies have further documented the apparent relationships between gullies
and potentially (H2 O) ice-rich materials at similar latitudes first noted by Christensen (2003). The
sinuosity of many (not all) martian gully channels may be challenging to produce via purely dry
flows (Mangold et al. 2010a), and gully slope topography implicates fluidization via some mech-
anism for a large fraction of gullies, possibly even more so for older gullies than for fresh ones
(e.g., Kolb et al. 2010). Even the most presently active crater wall gullies on Mars, in Gasa crater,
show evidence that initial alcove formation may have occurred via much larger-scale (and plausibly
water-lubricated) slope failures (Okubo et al. 2011). Furthermore, many gully-like features have
now been identified at tropical latitudes (e.g., Auld & Dixon 2016) that do not see CO2 frost under
the current climate. However, several studies have noted that these low-latitude landforms lack the
substantial, deeply incised channels characteristic of mid-latitude gullies (Dickson & Head 2009,
Harrison et al. 2015). Many mid-latitude sites exhibit morphologically distinct slope degradation
processes on slopes facing different directions, some of which may involve meltwater while others
do not (e.g., Johnsson et al. 2014). Sedimentological evidence favors a debris flow (over fluvial)
mechanism for wet gully formation in most cases, implicating comparatively smaller volumes of
·.•�-
water (de Haas et al. 2015).
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A recent compilation of conference papers has provided an up-to-date overview of the rich
and evolving state of martian gully science (Conway et al. 2019). What does seem clear is that the
gullies display no evidence for truly contemporary liquid water (i.e., within the past few years of
spacecraft observation). Spectral observations independently confirm this statement: Gullies ex-
hibit CO2 ice signatures during most periods of observed erosive activity (Vincendon 2015), while
their transported materials show no enhancement in hydrated phases relative to the preexisting
regional compositions (Núñez et al. 2016). We now turn to another active martian slope process
for which both seasonality and compositional constraints have appeared to argue more strongly
for a liquid water influence.
5.4. Recurring Slope Lineae

The submeter resolution of HiRISE was essential to discovery of recurring slope lineae (RSL),
dark streaks only up to a few meters wide (Figure 3d) that appear and disappear seasonally on
contemporary Mars (McEwen et al. 2011). Found initially on bedrock-exposing crater walls and
central peaks in the southern mid-latitudes, they have since been identified abundantly in the
equatorial canyons of Valles Marineris (McEwen et al. 2014), including on sand dunes (Chojnacki
et al. 2016), and in the northern mid-latitudes of Chryse and Acidalia Planitia (Stillman et al.
2016) as well as other scattered settings. Showing notably different slope and seasonal prefer-
ences from gullies, RSL appear and darken—in many cases growing incrementally downslope (to
lengths of up to a few hundred meters)—during the warmest months and on slopes receiving the
most sunlight (i.e., when and where surface temperatures are highest) before fading throughout
the fall and winter (Ojha et al. 2014), although exceptions to these trends have also been found
(e.g., Vincendon et al. 2019). Their specific temperature requirements appear to vary, with many
southern mid-latitude RSL showing major growth only when mid-afternoon surface temperatures
exceed 0°C (Stillman et al. 2014), whereas northern lowland RSL grow at surface temperatures
∼30° colder and those in Valles Marineris are intermediate between the two (Stillman et al. 2017).
These apparent temperature thresholds strongly suggested melting of ground ice (which, even if
shallow, would see peak temperatures at least somewhat lower than the directly illuminated sur-
face), perhaps with regionally different salt (i.e., brine) compositions (Chevrier & Rivera-Valentin
2012).
But how could equator-facing slopes in the mid-latitudes have acquired and preserved ice to
the present day for melting? This challenge is even more acute in the equatorial canyons. Mid-
latitude RSL sites would at least receive seasonal frost deposition on their pole-facing slopes, but
it is unclear if/how this H2 O could migrate to the equator-facing slopes where and when RSL are
active (Schorghofer et al. 2019). At any latitude, a deeper aquifer could provide groundwater along
faults or fractures, some of which have indeed been mapped in association with RSL (Abotalib &
Heggy 2019), but no aquifers have been detected directly outside the polar region (Section 5.1).
Deliquescence is another possibility for generating liquids, and indeed, an atmospheric connection
is suggested for some equatorial RSL by their activity—and the additional formation of larger
downslope topographic slumps, also relatively dark—during seasons when apparent H2 O fogs
form in the canyons (Ojha et al. 2017). Under more typical atmospheric conditions however, it
may be difficult for many RSL slopes to simultaneously achieve the requisite temperatures and
RHs required for deliquescence (Kossacki & Markiewicz 2014), although at least qualitatively this
could be mitigated if daytime atmospheric H2 O mixing ratios are higher nearer the surface, as
some landed and orbital measurements suggest (e.g., Tamppari et al. 2010, Montmessin & Ferron
2019).
·.•�-

If RSL are wet flows, then how much water would be involved? Dark slope features of similar
scale and seasonality found in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys are the surface manifestations of
groundwater transport in the upper decimeters of the soil (the portion above the ice table), with
typical volumetric water contents of ∼15% (Levy et al. 2011). For RSL, incremental downslope
growth (on the order of ∼1 m/day) indeed argues that flow must be primarily in the (shallow)
subsurface; Grimm et al. (2014) modeled such flow and found that in order to balance evaporative
losses, every meter width of slope on which RSL are forming would require several cubic meters
of source H2 O, a challenging number for ground ice or the atmosphere to provide under realistic
assumptions. For the RSL in Valles Marineris alone, Chojnacki et al. (2016) estimated that at least
∼105 –106 m3 water would be needed to explain the observed activity. More recent modeling by
Huber et al. (2020) requires somewhat smaller water volumes and can match the observed seasonal
growth curves of southern mid-latitude RSL quite well, given evaporation rates characteristic of
brines rather than pure water.
Discussion of brines prompts the question of whether their constituent salts might be de-
tectable spectroscopically, or perhaps even a signature of liquid water itself could be found to
independently validate the morphology/seasonality-based arguments for wet flows. Thermal in-
frared measurements of RSL sites found no local enhancements of chloride salts (Mitchell &
Christensen 2016) nor thermal inertia due to shallow water content (Edwards & Piqueux 2016),
but these ∼100 m/pixel measurements neither resolve individual (or clusters of ) RSL nor were
taken contemporaneously with RSL-documenting images. Our highest-resolution spectrometer
orbiting Mars is CRISM onboard sun-synchronous MRO, which observes the surface only in
the midafternoon—the driest time of day—rather than in the morning or evening hours when
liquid stability at the surface is greatest (Gough et al. 2011). Massé et al. (2014) found via lab
measurements that visible darkening of a moist but drying surface (perhaps analogous to RSL in
midafternoon) persists long after the infrared absorptions diagnostic of liquid H2 O have faded.
Still, the hydrated forms of salts crystallized from brines might remain detectable. Noting that
some RSL terminate on relatively light-toned fans of material (inferred to be deposits from past
RSL activity), Ojha et al. (2013) measured enhanced spectral signatures of both ferric and fer-
rous minerals in these materials, which were strongest when RSL were present on the surface.
They argued that these signatures could result from grain size sorting and/or ferric mineraliza-
tion associated with lineae development, or possibly from substrate wetting causing deepening of
all spectral absorptions (including the broadband visible darkening).
Ojha et al. (2015) attempted the even more difficult task of isolating a spectral signature from
lineae themselves, rather than from their larger depositional fans. Individual lineae are narrower
than CRISM’s ∼18 m/pixel highest resolution, but clusters of lineae span most of a CRISM pixel
at some sites. Ojha et al. (2015) found three southern mid-latitude and one equatorial site at which
CRISM data suggested locally enhanced hydration when and where RSL were present in simul-
taneous HiRISE images. At two of these sites, additional features in the RSL spectra were best
matched by laboratory spectra of hydrated (per)chlorate salts. Even if such salts are regionally or
globally ubiquitous, their greater abundance and/or hydration state in RSL seemingly confirmed
an active role for brines there. However, this finding has since been questioned. Leask et al. (2018)
reported that a standard filtering step in the generation of CRISM data products can introduce
spurious spectral features preferentially at the wavelengths (∼1.9 and ∼2.1 µm) at which hydrous
perchlorates absorb. They showed that some (although not all) of the RSL spectral features at-
tributed by Ojha et al. (2015) to hydrated salts are not evident in prefiltered spectral data and that
spurious absorptions in filtered CRISM data can be found at seemingly random locations, mostly
unrelated to RSL or to any other discernible surface features. Vincendon et al. (2019) raised sim-
·.•�-
ilar caveats and noted additionally the prevalence of column-dependent noise in CRISM data
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as a challenge for single-pixel analyses. These concerns are significant. However, it is worth re-
emphasizing that unlike Leask et al. (2018), Ojha et al. (2015) were not agnostically mapping
minerals across various parts of Mars; they were testing the specific hypothesis of brine-deposited
salts at a few particular times and places of known RSL activity. The previously underappreciated
limitations of CRISM data for identifying faint spectral features via single-pixel analyses suggest
that this hypothesis cannot yet be tested robustly but do not refute the hypothesis.
The uncertainties over both spectral interpretations and plausible water sources for RSL have
led to increasing interest in dry alternative hypotheses for their formation. Dundas et al. (2017)
observed that, across a wide range of sites, RSL length appears primarily controlled by the avail-
ability of slopes steeper than the dynamic angle of repose, as would be expected for dry granular
flows [although notably, Tebolt et al. (2020) obtained contradictory results]. Dundas (2020) de-
scribed further consistencies between the behaviors of RSL and those of known sand grainflows
on Mars. Such flows would be self-limiting in the absence of active resupply of new granular ma-
terial to flow downslope, but the same is true of the water (and salts) required by wet models.
The relative darkness of RSL, if not due to wetness, could instead relate to particle size/roughness
characteristics or to displacement of a thin lighter-toned mantle. RSL fading would then seem to
require seasonal replenishment of such a bright (dust?) mantle, but Schaefer et al. (2019) used a
sequence of relative albedo measurements at one RSL site to suggest instead that apparent fading
is due to eventual uniform darkening of the slopes that host RSL. They posited that a physical
mechanism first suggested for RSL by Schmidt et al. (2017), in which grain motion is triggered
by time-varying temperature gradients established by insolation in the slope soils, may act specif-
ically to mobilize dust grains. In this dust avalanche hypothesis, Schaefer et al. (2019) attributed
the secular reduction in annual RSL prominence since Mars Year 28—the most recent one with
a global dust storm—to steadily diminishing dust availability and predicted a resurgence of activ-
ity following the Mars Year 34 global dust storm ongoing at the time of their publication. This
prediction appears to be borne out by recent observations (McEwen et al. 2019, Stillman et al.
2020).
Ultimately, wet and dry models for RSL formation are each challenged by some of the obser-
vations (e.g., Huber et al. 2020, Stillman et al. 2020). Perhaps the truth is somewhere in between:
Recent models have proposed that RSL sediment transport could be triggered via deliquescence
(Wang et al. 2019) or boiling of much smaller liquid volumes than the wet models have implicated
(Massé et al. 2016, Raack et al. 2017), or via changes in soil cohesion as deliquescent salts undergo
diurnal hydration state changes even if actual liquefaction never occurs (Gough et al. 2020).
5.5. Low-Latitude Long-Lived Slope Streaks

The discovery of RSL has revived debates about dark streaks on warm martian slopes that were
first observed in Viking Orbiter images (Morris 1982). These classic slope streaks can be up to
kilometers long and tens to hundreds of meters wide (often widening downslope, at least initially),
are most commonly (but not always) darker than their host slopes (Figure 3e), and fade gradually
over timescales of several decades (Bhardwaj et al. 2019). Many new streaks have been observed by
MOC and HiRISE throughout the past 20-plus years, always appearing fully formed (i.e., lacking
evidence for incremental growth). Observing that streaks of this kind occur almost exclusively in
terrains of the lowest thermal inertia (interpreted to be uniformly dust mantled), Sullivan et al.
(2001) first argued that they represent dry dust avalanches, a hypothesis that would explain their
typical lack of resolvable downslope deposits as due to atmospheric suspension of the displaced
dust. Schorghofer et al. (2002) noted that peak surface temperatures greater than 0°C also seemed
·.•�-
necessary for slope streak formation, suggesting a role for liquid water; however, Baratoux et al.

(2006) suggested that wind-transported dust availability could alternatively explain some of the
same trends. For many streaks, what triggered their formation is unclear, but in some cases a
proximate cause can be identified: surface disturbance by a passing dust devil (Malin & Edgett
2001), impact airblast (Burleigh et al. 2012) or crater formation, or rockfall (Chuang et al. 2007).
HiRISE has resolved topography in some of these streaks: Their surfaces are depressed relative to
adjacent terrain and often have enhanced roughness, suggesting that their longer fading timescale
(relative to dark dune streaks or RSL) may be due to the need for substantial (approximately
decimeters of ) dust deposition to eventually bury this topography (Chuang et al. 2010).
One other striking difference between RSL versus these slope streaks is that the latter run out—
even for hundreds of meters—onto very shallow slopes, much shallower than the angle of repose
(e.g., Brusnikin et al. 2016). This motivated Kreslavsky & Head (2009) to suggest a wet forma-
tion mechanism similar to those since championed for RSL: subsurface flow of brines (freshwater
would boil too rapidly at the high elevations of many slope streaks) protected from evaporation by
the insulating dust cover and from infiltration by an ice table. They noted that this hypothesis pre-
dicts slope streak formation should occur in the warmest season(s), but initially no such seasonal
trends were observed (Schorghofer & King 2011). With additional years of repeat imaging, Heyer
et al. (2019) found a preference for autumnal formation at several sites, the implications of which
are not yet clear. Piqueux et al. (2016) had previously noted that CO2 frost condenses overnight
even at low latitudes where the thermal inertia is low enough, as in slope streak regions; for exam-
ple, in the study regions of Heyer et al. (2019), daily CO2 condensation/sublimation cycles resume
(following a summer hiatus) around the same season when slope streak formation appears favored
there. Alternatively, Bhardwaj et al. (2017) documented significant spatial correlation between re-
gional atmospheric H2 O, surface H2 O, and Cl abundances versus the global distribution of slope
streaks, supportive of a role for deliquescence in their formation, although no deliquescent salts
nor hydration have been detected in slope streaks directly (Mushkin et al. 2010). A recent review
of slope streak investigations by Bhardwaj et al. (2019) ultimately concluded that neither dry nor
wet mechanisms suggested to date can fully explain all of the observations on Mars; once again,
equifinality may be fooling us into grouping landforms together that in fact form via a range of
processes.
While we have covered the major classes of martian landforms hypothesized to originate via
contemporary liquid water, many others have also been proposed to have formed as recently as sev-
eral million years ago—for example, widespread evidence for wet-based glaciation (e.g., Conway
et al. 2018) and some fresh-appearing landslides morphometrically akin to mudslides on Earth
(Guimpier et al. 2019). The youthful age of these features suggests that if wetness was possible
then, it may yet be again. Of course, liquid water alone, especially if transient and/or briny, is not
in itself sufficient for habitability, one of our driving motivations for Mars exploration. Indeed,
recently improved understanding of the salts present on Mars and of how they affect liquid sta-
bility has expanded the range of locations in which contemporary liquids seem plausible, but with
no corresponding benefit to the likely habitability of contemporary Mars (Rivera-Valentín et al.
2020).
6. SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK

The ubiquity of life and liquid water on Earth has predisposed us historically to implicate
them in planetary processes observed elsewhere. While this tendency with respect to biology
has now largely been stifled, continued discoveries of liquid water’s influence—at least in the
past—in shaping Mars (among other Solar System bodies) keep it ever near the forefront of our
·.•�-
hypothesis-generating minds. This terrestrial bias must be recognized, for although physics is
158 Wray

Canals
Over-
optimism
Ancient
valleys
Aqueous minerals,
(N
wet gully models Deliquescent salts,
os
uc
wet RSL models
?
ce
ssf
Truth?
ul
ne
1965 1970 1975 2005 2015 Dry RSL
w
Dry gully
mi
models
models
ssi
on
Organic-poor
s)
soils (Viking)
Mariner 4
Over- (first flyby)
pessimism
Figure 4
Conceptual illustration of the perceived habitability and preponderance of water on Mars versus time since the dawn of the spacecraft
era, modeled qualitatively as a damped harmonic oscillator centered (hopefully) on the truth. Abbreviation: RSL, recurring slope lineae.
universal, the parameter ranges under which it operates in extraterrestrial environments are suf-
ficiently different to render any Earth analog imperfect.
Despite a long list of candidate features that might indicate contemporary liquid water on Mars,
each has lingering uncertainties in its interpretation—i.e., we remain without a smoking gun. Part
of Mars’s enduring allure stems from the fact that even after exploration by more missions than any
other planet beyond Earth, it continues to hide the answers to even some of our first most basic and
most important scientific questions. A common pattern has been that we pose hypotheses and then
send instruments that ultimately disprove them but show us where to look next. Early spacecraft
images showed craters rather than canals but redirected our attention to the distant past, when
fluvial valleys and flood channels formed. Mid-latitude gullies, initially widely viewed as evidence
for extant aquifers, exhibit seasonal activity patterns inconsistent with aqueous hypotheses; yet the
same kind of time monitoring has revealed other active features (RSL) with seasonal behavior at
least superficially more consistent with a role for H2 O. This has led the perceived importance of
water in shaping the Martian surface to oscillate over time (Figure 4), which will undoubtedly
continue as future exploration reveals additional answers and even more questions.
Several ongoing and upcoming missions promise to advance our understanding of these topics.
Unlike the cameras on MRO, the Color and Stereo Surface Imaging System (CaSSIS) onboard
ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter is not restricted to surface observations in only the midafternoon.
Munaretto et al. (2020) recently showed a first comparison of midmorning CaSSIS versus after-
noon HiRISE images of one RSL locale, helping to test RSL formation hypotheses; conducting
such studies at additional active slope sites with even wider time-of-day coverage will be valu-
able. The ExoMars landed mission, now due to launch in 2022, will feature not only the Rosalind
Franklin rover largely focused on exploring past habitability but also the Kazachok stationary plat-
·.•�-
form including an instrument called HabitAbility: Brine Irradiation and Temperature (HABIT)

(Martín-Torres et al. 2020). In addition to environmental sensors for winds, temperature, and UV
fluxes, HABIT includes a novel experiment to carry four deliquescent salts to Mars (ferric sulfate,
Ca-chloride, and Mg,Na perchlorates) in HEPA filter-capped containers and measure their time-
varying conductivity to determine if and when the deliquescence of each salt actually occurs in
the contemporary martian environment. Two other open-air containers may accumulate martian
dust and measure its conductivity for comparison. Both the Rosalind Franklin and NASA’s Per-
severance rovers will also carry ground-penetrating radar instruments capable of detecting any
liquid within ∼10 m of the surface, although their landing sites were each selected based more on
ancient habitability than on likelihood of extant liquids. An orbiting radar to probe the shallow
subsurface globally has repeatedly been recommended for NASA’s next Mars orbiter, if and when
one is funded for flight (see Next Orbiter Science Analysis Group and Ice and Climate Evolu-
tion Science Analysis Group reports posted at https://mepag.jpl.nasa.gov/reports.cfm). In the
meantime, Manga et al. (2019) proposed an alternative means by which the presence and state of
deep aquifers might be assessed seismically, an exciting prospect as the InSight mission continues
its monitoring of seismic activity in Elysium Planitia.
FUTURE ISSUES
1. Which, if any, of the active dark slope features observed on Mars are wet?
2. What is the source of water for any active wet streaks?
3. How important are liquid thin films (e.g., within ice deposits) for the habitability of
modern Mars?
4. What are the distribution, chemistry, and thermodynamic state of subsurface aquifers?
5. Do contemporary aqueous processes relate to unexplained trace gases, such as methane?
6. How different was all of this a few million years ago, 3.5 Gyr ago, or 4 Gyr ago?
DISCLOSURE STATEMENT
The author is not aware of any affiliations, memberships, funding, or financial holdings that might
be perceived as affecting the objectivity of this review.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I thank the CaSSIS and MRO Projects for financial support while writing this review. All HiRISE
images in Figure 3 were acquired during cycles in which I had the pleasure of serving as “Co-I of
the Pay Period” responsible for planning. More broadly, I am grateful for my 14-year association
with the HiRISE and CRISM science and operations teams, who have not only acquired some of
the most illuminating data sets relevant to the questions considered herein but also been exemplary
colleagues and taught me most of what little I now understand about Mars.
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Contemporary Liquid Water On Mars?: Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

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EA49CH07_Wray ARjats.

cls November 18, 2020 11:57

Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences

School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta,

Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 2021. 49:141–71 Keywords

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2. PAST LIQUID WATER ON MARS

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www.annualreviews.org • Contemporary Liquid Water on Mars? 143

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favorable local microclimate (Dickson et al. 2009).

3. THE CONTEMPORARY H2 O INVENTORY

www.annualreviews.org • Contemporary Liquid Water on Mars? 145

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Mars T, PH2O range

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4.1. Salts in the Soils

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4.2. Droplets and Dark Streaks

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www.annualreviews.org • Contemporary Liquid Water on Mars? 151

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5.2. Polar Dark Dune Streaks

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regime under which only CO2 (not H2 O) would be volatilized.

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5.4. Recurring Slope Lineae

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5.5. Low-Latitude Long-Lived Slope Streaks

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6. SUMMARY AND OUTLOOK

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its monitoring of seismic activity in Elysium Planitia.

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Mars. Geophys. Res. Lett. 39:L21202

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with MRO/HiRISE. Icarus 251:244–63

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northern polar dunes. Science 331:575–78

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of soil at Gusev crater, Mars. J. Geophys. Res. 115(E7):E00F04

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Res. Planets 121:1411–28

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mechanism of recurring slope lineae. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40:5621–26

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