“Dust” streaks on Mars

Global mapping and photometry of selected areas on Mars are used to investigate the nature of bright and dark wind streaks that extend from topographic obstacles. Occurrence of both bright and dark streaks is strongly latitude dependent and is only weakly correlated with surface properties such as albedo and thermal inertia. Data on the colors, albedos, and phase behavior of streaks are consistent with models of bright streaks as mosaics of plains material and brighter, redder dust. Less than 20% of the ground need be covered by the optically thick dust in the brightest parts of the streaks; the amount of dust in optically thick layers could be as little as 10^?3 g/cm². Dark streaks can be interpreted as erosional windows in a patchy dust cover. Our model of dust deposition in optically thick patches is sedimentologically different from scenarios involving the deposition of ubiquitous, optically thin layers. It has the advantage that large amounts of dust can be deposited without affecting regional albedos.