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Global Sediment Lifting of Martian Dust Devils
Steele, Peter
Steele, Peter
Abstract
Dust devils, which are rising columns of rotating air whose velocities on the surface exceed the settling velocity of dust and aerosol particles, are present on Mars but their characteristics are not completely understood. The amount of sediment that Martian dust devils lift into the atmosphere is calculated by dividing the Martian surface into 4 bins and multiplying several average parameters including the frequency of dust devils in the bin, the amount of sediment lifted by a dust devil, and the duration of a dust devil. Previous studies have only regarded Gusev Crater where 19 kg km-2 sol-1 of sediment are lifted, yet the minimum value of sediment lifted averaged globally was calculated to be 1537 kg km-2 sol-1. Assuming that the Martian surface is in steady state with regard to loose sediment, a maximum value of 1.58 x 1020 kg of sediment is possible although not extremely plausible given that the total mass of Mars is 6.41 x 1023. The large range in variability calculated for sediment lifting from dust devils is indicative of some parameters of dust devils not being researched extensively enough to calculate a satisfactory total flux of sediment from dust devils. Further research should concentrate on refining values for dust devil lifting rates, duration, and frequency in different regions.
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2013-01-01
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Geology