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IMAGE: This image of a glacier on Mars shows the abundance of boulders within the ice.
High-resolution imaging of the surface of Mars suggests that debris-covered glacier deposits formed during multiple. view more
Credit: Joe Levy/Colgate University
In a new paper published today in the
Proceedings of the National Academies of ScienceS (
PNAS), planetary geologist Joe Levy, assistant professor of geology at Colgate University, reveals a groundbreaking new analysis of the mysterious glaciers of Mars.
On Earth, glaciers covered wide swaths of the planet during the last Ice Age, which reached its peak about 20,000 years ago, before receding to the poles and leaving behind the rocks they pushed behind. On Mars, however, the glaciers never left, remaining frozen on the Red Planet s cold surface for more than 300 million years, covered in debris. All the rocks and sand carried on that ice have remained on the surface, says Levy. It s like putting the ice in