LOBATE FEATURES ON MARS EXHIBIT SAME SCALING AS TERRESTRIAL SOLIFLUCTION PATTERNS

Solifluction patterns are generally found on hillslopes in cold environments and can be observed on Earth and possibly other celestial bodies. Because these lobate features form due to frost-heave processes on Earth, solifluction patterns are thought to be valuable paleoenvironmental indicators on other planets. Recent work has shown that in addition to possible climate controls on solifluction lobe morphology, average pattern wavelengths can be explained with a physical mechanism similar to fluid instabilities found at flow fronts. A theoretical analysis inspired by fluid instabilities predicts that solifluction wavelengths scale nonlinearly with lobe height/topographic slope; a large dataset of solifluction lobes in Norway shows that average lobe wavelengths align with this prediction, while climate indices control absolute lobe size. Here we use Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) created from the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera to examine lobate features in several Martian craters in order to see if they exhibit the same scaling found on Earth. Data clouds normalized for average wavelength, height and slope on each planet fall on top of each other, and average wavelengths on Mars are found to indeed exhibit the same scaling seen on Earth and predicted from fluid instability theory. Our findings suggest that Martian and terrestrial lobes form due to similar physical processes, with implications for our understanding of surface processes on Mars and past Martian climate.