University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Doctoral Dissertations Graduate School 12-2016 Geomorphology, Stratigraphy, and Paleohydrology of the Aeolis Dorsa region, Mars, with Insights from Modern and Ancient Terrestrial Analogs Robert Eric Jacobsen II University of Tennessee, Knoxville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss Part of the Geology Commons Recommended Citation Jacobsen, Robert Eric II, "Geomorphology, Stratigraphy, and Paleohydrology of the Aeolis Dorsa region, Mars, with Insights from Modern and Ancient Terrestrial Analogs. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 2016. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/4098 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a dissertation written by Robert Eric Jacobsen II entitled "Geomorphology, Stratigraphy, and Paleohydrology of the Aeolis Dorsa region, Mars, with Insights from Modern and Ancient Terrestrial Analogs." I have examined the final electronic copy of this dissertation for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, with a major in Geology. Devon M. Burr, Major Professor We have read this dissertation and recommend its acceptance: Christopher M. Fedo, Anna Szynkiewicz, Liem T. Tran Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) Geomorphology, Stratigraphy, and Paleohydrology of the Aeolis Dorsa region, Mars, with Insights from Modern and Ancient Terrestrial Analogs A Dissertation Presented for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree The University of Tennessee, Knoxville Robert Eric Jacobsen II December 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Robert Eric Jacobsen II All rights reserved. ii Dedication How can I dedicate what has been prepared for me by my family, my friends, and my God? I offer this back to them with gratitude. iii Acknowledgements I find these words wanting and I attribute this wanting to the dissertation before you. This dissertation stands in the gap between planets, times, and research communities. It is liminal. Please know that this dissertation would not be possible without the individuals and organizations mentioned here and many others. This dissertation would have been too much for me to bear alone and much less satisfying on my own. First, I’d like to acknowledge my advisor and friend Professor Devon Burr. Devon’s gifts include, but are not limited to, patience, enthusiasm, and steadfastness. These gifts shepherded me here and shaped me into the geomorphologist I am today. I couldn’t have done this without you, Devon. I’m so happy to share this with you and to know that we’ll get to share this with others. I am very grateful for Professor Chris Fedo. Chris sat me down in the middle of my third year, a time when I was struggling with major changes to my dissertation committee. Chris saw where I wanted to go, into the gap between Earth and Mars, ancient and modern, geomorphology and sedimentology. He directed me to Earth, and the works of Andrew Miall, to complement my knowledge of Martian fluvial geomorphology. Lively and sometimes heated discussions with Chris changed the way I think about Mars and the science of geology. Many thanks are given to Professors Anna Szynkiewicz and Liem Tran for their interest and input throughout the course of this dissertation. Professors Jeff Moersch and Carol Harden were also helpful. Thanks to Professors Joshua Emery, Linda Kah, and Colin Sumrall for their interest and thought-provoking questions. I extend (warm Californian) thanks to Professor Sally Horn for all her encouragement and enthusiasm. Although I applied to the University of Tennessee to study planetary geomorphology, I came to Knoxville because of the community of students in the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department. There was a family in EPS when I visited and I have been blessed to be part of that family. Sarah Drummond, Andrea Hughes, Kelsey Singer, Matt Chojnacki, Geoff Gilleaudeau, Brian Balta, and Christina Viviano-Beck were among the welcoming faces that invited me to Knoxville. I then joined the ranks with Chloe Beddingfield, Latisha Brengman, Richard Cartwright, Sheri Singerling, Arya Udry, and closely followed by Mike Lucas and Tim Diedesch. You guys are the best! Later came Nicole Lunning, Chris Tate, Derek Street, Kati and Tyler Ayers, Michael Gragg, Eric Maclennan, Ashley Manning-Berg, Rose Borden, Jason Muhlbauer, Emily Nield, Samantha Peel, Keenan Golder, Michael Phillips, Miles Henderson, Sarah Sheffield, Cameron Hughes, and Rachel Kronyak. You all made this worth it! Graduate Teaching Assistantships from the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, Research Assistantships from the Planetary Geosciences Institute and from the Tennessee Space Grant Consortium also made this dissertation possible. Funding for assistantships and travel to conferences was provided by NASA’s Mars Fundamental Research Program and Mars Data Analysis Program, Planetary Geology Division of the Geological Society of America, the University of Tennessee College of Arts and Sciences, and the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department Discretionary Fund. iv Many thanks are due to Corey Fortezzo, Trent Hare, and Jim Skinner of the USGS Astrogeology Branch for producing image data, answering questions about planetary geologic mapping, and their warm collegiality. I thank Ross Irwin, Laura Kerber, Edwin Kite, Ken Tanaka, Jim Zimbelman, Rebecca Williams, and the planetary geologic mapping community for insightful discussions throughout the course of this dissertation. I also thank Brett Eaton, Kory Konsoer, Caleb Fassett, and Tim Goudge for helpful discussions regarding the second chapter of this dissertation. Outside of the Earth and Planetary Sciences Department, I have been welcomed into a family of students from around the world. My heart is full of thanks for Bridges International, Michael Henderson, Emily Ackerson, Jonathan and Li Yin Goode, Ba-Er Baer, Nan Chen, CeCe Ging, Terry and Rosann Douglass, John Wood, Mark and Janet Cockrum, Meg Cockrum, Justin Kaewnopparat, Akin Ola, Steven Shen, Nate Henry, Leah Henry, and Josie Henry, Ming and Yang Qi, Reza and Melika Ghahremani, Derek Koe, Sheng and Kay Wang, and many others. I thank God for Intervarsity’s Graduate and Faculty Christian Fellowship, the Veritas Forum, Melanie and Julian Reese, Teresa Hooper, Janelle Coleman, Mark Gates, Jordan Baker, and Eliza Scott. Many from outside the University of Tennessee made this journey particularly rich and I thank God for Josiah and Caleb Glafenhein, Jake Felde, Chris Rowe, Rick Moore, Erik Johnson, Jeff Upshaw, Jon Cate, Dennis Schauer, Austin Womac, Laura Owen, Alyson Grimes, Julie Lamb, Anna McRhee, Greg & Shirley DelMoro, Ryan and Lisa Matthews, Keith and Shelly Percic, Kelsey Vaughn, Hannah Martin, Kristin Ponsonby, Misha Testerman, Noelle Harb, Vincent Charlow, Jonathan Foster, Doug Banister, Linda Hamilton, and Jill Branson. Finally, but no less gratefully, there are those that have loved and encouraged me from afar, my parents Bob and Georgia Jacobsen, Jimmy and Ariel Lowe, Nathan Bennett, Ben Goldeen, Lauren Serpa, Rachel Griffith, Al and Marcy Barrera, Amy Ryan, and many others. v Abstract Ancient fluvial features on Mars evidence past episodes of hydrologic activity and paleoclimate conditions suitable for liquid water. The Aeolis Dorsa region preserves the most numerous and diverse assemblage of fluvial features yet observed on Mars and many of these features have experienced a history of burial, exhumation, and topographic inversion. This dissertation describes analyses of visual images and topography of Mars and complementary analyses of fluvial analogs on Earth. These analyses provide information about the styles of fluvial activity, magnitudes of paleodischarge, changes in slope, and inferences about Martian paleoclimate conditions. Results indicate that the Aeolis Dorsa deposits encapsulate a wet-to-dry hydrologic transition, characterized by decreasing geospatial extent and frequency of hydrologic events. This wet-to-dry transition mimics the history of hydrologic activity preserved in valley networks and alluvial fans elsewhere on Mars. Results from an analysis of the Quinn River, NV, a terrestrial analog fluvial channel, indicate that width-discharge relationships from hydraulic geometry yield more accurate and more precise estimates of discharge than previously applied width-discharge relationships from the Missouri River Basin. These more accurate width-discharge relationships from hydraulic geometry, when applied to Martian features, yield larger paleodischarge estimates for Noachian-Hesperian valley networks and smaller paleodischarges for Hesperian-Amazonian fluvial deposits than were previously estimated. These new paleodischarges increase the contrast between early and late episodes of hydrologic activity by an order of magnitude. Results from additional analyses of terrestrial analogs and the Aeolis Dorsa deposits reveal confounding factors associated with resistant channel banks and erosion. These factors increase the systematic