A new paper to be published in the latest edition of the Journal of Geophysical Research says that Mars once had a vast Northern ocean, exactly along the lines Richard and I described in our Mars Tidal Model paper in 2001.
The research, led by Wei Luo of Northern Illinois University, shows that Mars' valley networks are much more extensive than previously thought, and this strongly implies that they were carved by the flow of water from an ancient ocean in the Northern lowlands. Where our two theories differ of course is in not just the time frame, but the source of these valley networks. Luo, like all mainstream geologists, assumes that this vast ocean must have existed in Mars' ancient past, at least 2 billion years ago. Our model says it was much more recent than that, anywhere from 65 million to perhaps 2 million years ago.
We also differ in our models as to the source of this Northern ocean. In the MTM, the ocean was actually centered around 2 anti-podal locations on the Tharsis and Arabia bulges, with Olympus Mons towering over the largest of these two tidally locked water masses and with Vallis Marineris being carved from a tidal bore between these two enormous bodies of water. When the tidal lock was suddenly broken by the violent destruction of Planet V, the parent planet around which Mars once orbited, all of this water suddenly broke loose and flowed downhill into the Northern and Southern lowlands. The southern ocean was quickly covered up or evaporated under the bombardment of debris from the destroyed Planet V, while the outflows to the North scoured the Martian surface and deposited the remaining water in the new Northern lowlands, where it froze solid over the next several decades. In this model, the channels were carved very rapidly by the catastrophic flow of the tidal locked oceans into these lower regions.
Clearly, our model is correct, as earlier studies have failed to find a shoreline for this projected Northern ocean. This is because the mainstream scientists are looking for a shoreline from an ancient, long standing ocean in the North, while in fact the water flowed so quickly it never had time to form a cliff line along the shore before it froze. There is, conversly, ample evidence to support our idea for a tidal locked ocean on the Tharsis bulge; it is quite simply Olympus Mons itself, which has a 6 mile high cliff line all around it from the battering waves of the tidal ocean.
Maybe someday the mainstream guys will get out of their paradigm paralysis long enough to face the facts about Mars' geological history and the enormous implications it has for re-writing the history of the entire Solar System. Until then, we must be satisfied with once again being confirmed by their work, even if they don't understand what it means.
On the web: Daily Telegraph (UK)
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