[Rockhounds] Possible new type of glacier just discovered on Mars

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

A potential Mars landing site might be underlain by debris-covered glaciers.

Strange sinuous features on a flat plain known as Arcadia Planitia bear a
striking resemblance to ice streams within ice sheets in *Antarctica,*
<https://www.livescience.com/21677-antarctica-facts.html> a new study
finds. If these shallowly covered glaciers do, in fact, exist, they could
be a reason to direct future crewed missions to Mars toward the region. The
spot was already intriguing to SpaceX and NASA because it is a broad, flat
plain, which is ideal for landing spacecraft. If there is ice not too deep
below the surface of the plain, astronauts could also have a water source
easily at hand.

The newfound flow-like features are strange because they occur on flat
terrain, said study leader Shannon Hibbard, a doctoral student at the
University of Western Ontario in Canada.

"There's lots of evidence that this is an ice-rich area, but we don't have
any major topographic relief occurring where these sinuous features are,"
Hibbard told Live Science. "They're existing in a pretty flat-lying plane,
so that was kind of odd."

https://www.livescience.com/mars-arcadia-planitia-glaciers.html