Overview
- Nature Communications publishes simulations by Saira S. Hamid and colleagues showing that explosive eruptions 4.1–3.0 billion years ago could have precipitated ice in equatorial regions.
- A single three‑day event in the model deposits up to roughly five meters of ice as water vapor freezes in Mars’s cold atmosphere.
- Lower gravity allows eruption plumes to rise to about 65 kilometers, enabling long‑distance transport of water and sulfur species.
- Burial by volcanic ash or debris and sulfuric‑acid cooling episodes could preserve equatorial subsurface ice to the present.
- Syrtis Major and Apollinaris Mons near the Medusae Fossae Formation emerge as plausible sources matching elevated near‑surface hydrogen, with resource and landing‑site implications if confirmed.