Identifying Wrinkle Ridges from Mars MGS and Viking Mission Data: Using GRASS GIS in Planetary Geology

During the past few decades, numerous missions to Mars have sent information about the red planet. The missions have shown that Mars has ice on its poles and that ice could be present all over the planet subsurface. The presence of ice on the subsurface could drive particular geological structures called ‘wrinkle ridges’. In this work, Viking image data and the latest Mars Global Suveyor (MGS) data have been imported and stored in a common geospatial database using GRASS GIS as a tool for planetary geology. This study has focused on a subregion of Solis Planum where wrinkle ridges have been localised and both Viking images and MGS altimetry and imagery data are available. Raster data at different resolutions and with different projection parameters have been imported into GRASS GIS and projected in a common reference system. Raw, unprojected data have been processed and rectified using the GRASS image modules. Imagery data have been used to detect planimetric features, whereas basic morphometrical analysis has been performed from the gridded elevation data coming from MGS Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter.