Over the past three billion years, wind-blown (aeolian) activity has been a dominant agent of Martian surface modification, producing extensive dunes, ripples and wind-eroded terrain. These landscapes record the interaction between atmosphere, sediment and topography. On Earth, such processes can be observed and measured directly. On Mars, they must largely be reconstructed from orbital imagery, rover observations and numerical models adapted to a much thinner atmosphere and lower gravity.
This seminar traces a research journey from the beaches and dunes of Magilligan on the north coast of Ireland to the surface of Mars. It will show how computational fluid dynamics uses detailed terrain models to simulate three-dimensional near-surface airflow. Terrestrial examples demonstrate how topography accelerates, redirects and separates wind flow, thereby controlling patterns of sediment transport, erosion and deposition. The same approach can help determine how Martian landscapes formed and whether their wind-blown bedforms remain active today.
Drawing on research at Proctor Crater, the Bagnold Dune Field in Gale Crater, Nili Patera and Hellespontus Montes, together with recent UK Space Agency-funded work at Oxia Planum, the planned landing site of the ExoMars Rosalind Franklin rover, the seminar will demonstrate how terrain-resolved airflow models can explain observed bedform movement and identify local patterns of sediment mobility. It will conclude by considering how atmospheric modelling across scales, from regional circulation to the immediate rover environment, could improve the interpretation of surface change, environmental measurements and future Mars surface operations.
Venue
Seminar rooms
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