Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
(a)
(b)
Figure 5.2
Tracks in the sand: desert exploration in our solar system. (a) Tracks in the Namib Sand Sea: University of Oxford
fieldwork, 2007 (photo: David Thomas). (b) Tracks of NASA's
Opportunity
Rover, 2004, Meridiani Planum, Mars (photo: NASA).
to include the diverse analogue landscapes that can be
found elsewhere in the deserts of the world, both the
well-studied hot deserts and the somewhat neglected cold
deserts.
collecting geomorphic data. Similarly, landing sites are
necessarily prioritised according to spacecraft safety, not
geomorphic interest. Because of these restrictions plane-
tary geomorphology is somewhat comparable to the ear-
liest phases of the exploration of terrestrial deserts (see
Chapter 1), where the literature is dominated by first im-
pressions (sometimes quite erroneous). The heyday of
planetary geomorphology is yet to come with the devel-
opment of high-resolution images, long-range remotely
operated vehicles and, eventually, crewed missions re-
turning to the Moon and then to Mars and beyond, and
building on the foundation of terrestrial desert exploration
(Figure 5.2).
Even in this early stage there are many lessons that ter-
restrial geomorphologists can profitably learn from study-
ing planetary surfaces. Not the least of these is the limits
to climatic geomorphology as presently understood, evi-
denced by the similarity of rocky surfaces on Earth, Mars,
5.4
What can terrestrial geomorphologists
learn from a solar system perspective?
Based on comments to the author by terrestrial geomor-
phologists, some find planetary geomorphology superfi-
cial and simplistic. This is partly due to the immense
limitation of the discipline compared to terrestrial ge-
omorphology, being restricted largely to images from
spacecraft in orbital or on flyby trajectories, and with very
limited ground truth. Data are collected by instruments de-
signed to meet engineering constraints, not optimised for
