UTILIZING MORPHOMETRIC ANALYSES OF EVERY MARTIAN VALLEY TO ASSESS THE HETEROGENEITY OF CONDITIONS DURING THE TIME OF VALLEY NETWORK FORMATION (Invited Presentation)

Valley networks have long been recognized as one of the clearest lines of evidence that Mars once hosted a potentially warmer and wetter climate than that of today. Compared to terrestrial river valleys, martian valley networks generally have a lower drainage density, stream order, and channel sinuosity and length, which together suggest a relatively brief period of geomorphic activity. However, martian valley networks exhibit striking variability in their morphologies, the cause of which is not well understood. Morphometric analyses of cross sectional valley profiles have been used to interpret the prevailing geologic, hydrologic, and climatic environment during their formation. We build on these previous studies by using an automated algorithmic approach to generate cross sectional profiles for every MOLA track that crosses a valley network in the Hynek et al. (2010) database. From these ~600,000 valley network profiles, we obtain morphometric measurements of width, depth, floor elevation, and cross-sectional area. We will discuss global patterns in the distribution of valley morphometry, the total sediment and water volumes necessary to erode the observe networks, and the implications for Mars’ climate at the time of valley incision.