Traces of a vast ocean 3.5 billion years old discovered on Mars

According to "ScienceAlert", scientists from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California at Berkeley have provided evidence for the existence of an ancient ocean on the surface of Mars. For this, they have examined a huge coastline with deposits not less than 900 meters thick and an area of hundreds of thousands of square kilometres.

The researchers analysed data from orbits and produced a topographical map of the Eolis-Dorsa region. This is a deep area of Mars, which is about 500 kilometres wide and 900 kilometres long. The 2 km high plains to the east and west are surrounded by steep slopes to the south.

Specialists have mapped over 6,500 kilometres of exposed river ridges and landforms, showing the location of ancient river valleys.

This made it possible to measure the directions of ancient currents and record their stratigraphic shorelines on an ocean scale. As the water receded from north to south, this line rose vertically by at least 900 metres.

Erosion on the Dorsa Eolida led to the formation of deposits kilometres thick, which can be interpreted as marginal deposits of a large watershed.