Published January 17, 2025 | Published
Journal Article Open

Wave ripples formed in ancient, ice-free lakes in Gale crater, Mars

  • 1. ROR icon California Institute of Technology
  • 2. ROR icon University of Tennessee at Knoxville
  • 3. ROR icon Imperial College London
  • 4. ROR icon University of California, Berkeley
  • 5. ROR icon Planetary Science Institute
  • 6. ROR icon Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • 7. ROR icon United States Geological Survey
  • 8. ROR icon University of California, Santa Cruz
  • 9. ROR icon University of Chicago
  • 10. ROR icon Research Institute in Astrophysics and Planetology
  • 11. ROR icon Indiana University Bloomington
  • 12. ROR icon Jet Propulsion Lab

Abstract

Symmetrical wave ripples identified with NASA's Curiosity rover in ancient lake deposits at Gale crater provide a key paleoclimate constraint for early Mars: At the time of ripple formation, climate conditions must have supported ice-free liquid water on the surface of Mars. These features are the most definitive examples of wave ripples on another planet. The ripples occur in two stratigraphic intervals within the orbitally defined Layered Sulfate Unit: a thin but laterally extensive unit at the base of the Amapari member of the Mirador formation, and a sandstone lens within the Contigo member of the Mirador formation. In both locations, the ripples have an average wavelength of ~4.5 centimeters. Internal laminae and ripple morphology show an architecture common in wave-influenced environments where wind-generated surface gravity waves mobilize bottom sediment in oscillatory flows. Their presence suggests formation in a shallow-water (<2 meters) setting that was open to the atmosphere, which requires atmospheric conditions that allow stable surface water.

Copyright and License

© 2025 the Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial license 4.0 (CC BY-NC).

Acknowledgement

We thank the Mars Science Laboratory project engineering and science teams for their efforts that were vital in collecting the data presented. Mastcam mosaics were processed by the Mastcam team at Malin Space Science Systems.

Funding

Some of the research was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Additional funding sources were provided by NASA MSL Participating Scientist Program award 80NSSC22K0731 (E.S.K.), NASA MSL Participating Scientist Program award NNH22OB34A (L.A.E.), UK Space Agency awards ST/S001492/1 and ST/X002373/1 (S.G.), NASA Mars Exploration Program award R-00727-24-0.2 (P.G.), French Space Agency CNES under convention CNES 180027 (G.C.), NASA MSL Participating Scientist Program under JPL Subcontract 1546404 (D.R.), and UK Space Agency awards ST/Y000137/1 and ST/S001506/1 (S.B.).

Contributions

Conceptualization: C.M.F., J.P.G., S.G., W.E.D., S.G., C.M.W., P.G., D.R., E.S.K., and J.S. Methodology: C.A.M., C.M.F., J.P.G., M.P.L., S.G., W.E.D., S.B., L.A.E., D.R., A.B.B., and G.C. Formal analysis: C.A.M., M.P.L., S.G., and S.B. Investigation: C.A.M., S.G., W.E.D., S.B., C.M.W., P.G., A.B.B., E.S.K., G.C., and J.S. Data curation: A.R.V. Visualization: C.A.M., J.P.G., M.P.L., S.G., and L.A.E. Funding acquisition: A.R.V. Project administration: A.R.V. Writing—original draft: C.A.M., C.M.F., J.P.G., and M.P.L. Writing—review and editing: C.A.M., C.M.F., J.P.G., M.P.L., S.G., S.B., L.A.E., and J.S.

Data Availability

All Curiosity data presented in this paper are archived in NASA’s Planetary Data System (https://pds-geosciences.wustl.edu/missions/msl/). Codes for the modeling presented in the paper are available in the Supplementary Materials from (56). All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials.

Supplemental Material

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Additional details

Created:
January 21, 2025
Modified:
January 21, 2025