23 – Esker Questions (feat. Frances Butcher)

On Earth, geologists are pretty familiar with the concept of an esker, a snake-like ridge formation left behind by a receding glacier. Across our planet they can be found in areas where glaciers once dominated the landscape. The same is true on Mars, but eskers also require a time when glaciers could melt. Frances Butcher, a PhD student from the Open University, talks with Jake about these special kinds of Martian eskers that indicate a warmer, wetter environment than we once thought.

Links

• Mars Timekeeping from the Planetary Society
• The Martian Calendar from the Planetary Society
• Frances’ abstract from the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference
• HiRISE image of the esker system Frances is studying
  • Analgyph version if you’ve got 3D glasses

Further Listening

• Don’t Panic Geocast has some great episodes on eskers if you want to delve in to more of the science behind them. Episode 51 goes over them in detail.

WeMartians music is “RetroFuture” and “Electrodoodle” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/