Carbon Dioxide-Water Clathrate as a Reservoir of CO_2 on Mars
- Creators
- Dobrovolskis, A.
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Ingersoll, A. P.
Abstract
It has been suggested that the residual polar caps of Mars contain a reservoir of permanently frozen carbon dioxide which is controlling the atmospheric pressure. However, observational data and models of the polar heat balance suggest that the temperatures of the Martian poles are too high for solid CO_2 to survive permanently. On the other hand, the icelike compound carbon dioxide-water clathrate (CO_2·6H_2O) could function as a CO_2 reservoir instead of solid CO_2, because it is stable at higher temperatures. This paper shows that the permanent polar caps may contain several millibars of CO_2 in the form of clathrate, and discusses the implications of this permanent clathrate reservoir for the present and past atmospheric pressure on Mars.
Additional Information
© 1975 by Academic Press, Inc. Received May 9, 1975. This work was supported by NASA grant NGL-05-002-003. One of us (A.D.) gratefully acknowledges the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship during the period of this work.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 35828
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20121205-130919644
- NGL-05-002-003
- NASA
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowship
- Created
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2012-12-05Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-09Created from EPrint's last_modified field
- Caltech groups
- Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences