Late Mars Workshop

Late Mars Workshop

The Late Mars Workshop took place at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, on October 1–2, 2018, and comprised two days of oral presentations and a poster session. The aim of the workshop was to promote and facilitate the discussion and verbal exploration of current and/or recent geological activity at/near the surface of Mars.

The discussions covered landforms and landscape features, i.e., recurring slope lineae; gullies, south-polar spiders; thermokarst; small-sized polygons; and (possible) perennial ice-cored mounds, as well as processes, i.e., CO2 and/or dry slope-centered flows; brines and/the metastability of water; the freeze-thaw cycling of water; and obliquity/eccentricity influenced climate change. Background (invited) presentations elaborated upcoming Mars missions and goals and tabled the most recent orbiter-generated observations.

Each session ended with significant time being allocated for open-ended discussion. This was carried through the poster and evening reception (at the end of Day 1), and the workshop summary (following the last session on Day 2). Numerous participants suggested renewing this workshop two or three years down the road.

For more information, including links to the program and abstracts, visit the meeting website at https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/latemars2018/.

— Submitted by Richard Soare, Dawson College