That's been a popular recent interpretation, Rich. IIRC, the idea is that occasionally an underground source ruptures through a crater or canyon wall in sufficient volume to flow quite a distance before it all boils away. I think I recall reading that these features were confined to a specific lattitude range and thus possibly tied to a seasonal cycle, or a longer-term climatic cycle related to massive shifting of the inclination of the rotational axis. Which as I recall for Mars can be over 70-degrees (or something like that...) I just hope a geologist can get to Mars before I die. Then we'll start to get some real answers. C. --- Richard Tenney <retenney@yahoo.com> wrote:
What about the possibility of geothermally heated underground water that erupts to the surface in sufficent quantities to cause the erosion seen? We have plenty of underground lakes and rivers here on earth, some of it surfacing in geyser form -- perhaps they exist(ed) there as well...?
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