Planetary Geomorphology: interpreting process from shape
Every planet has a past that has etched itself indelibly into the landscape. We live on one such world and are reminded everyday of the importance of that history. Where would we be today if Earth did not have the abundance of water to fill its rivers and oceans or if our blanketing atmosphere had been stripped away? What will happen to us as the atmosphere continues to warm? The answers are already here, we need only look up to other planets and learn how to understand them.
This involves improving our ability to observe and measure landscapes and constructing numerical models that can describe and predict phenomena that take millions of years to occur.
Modeling Wind-Driven Waves on Other Planets: Applications to Mars, Titan, and Exoplanets
Schneck et al., (2026) JGR: Planets
Some of our earliest understanding of waves comes from the (occasionally tall) tales of sailors and the pragmatic concerns of D-Day. Over the last century, our understanding of the ways wind generates waves and how those waves shape Earth’s surface has exploded through a combination of rapidly-developing theory, the ever-expanding catalogue of field and satellite observations, and increasingly complex numerical models. However, because our experience of waves is limited to Earth, these models struggle in generalizing to new places in our solar system, which may have had past (e.g., Mars) or current (e.g., Titan) waves.
This work expands our understanding of the interaction of wind and waves to larger planetary context by developing a physics-based numerical wave model that is flexible enough to apply to any planet. With this model, we demonstrate how planetary conditions affect the growth of waves. We find that the threshold for wave generation is lower for liquids with weaker surface tension and under higher atmospheric pressure and lower gravity. We also find that waves grow taller in less dense liquids and under higher atmospheric pressure and lower gravity.
This work expands our understanding of the interaction of wind and waves to larger planetary context by developing a physics-based numerical wave model that is flexible enough to apply to any planet. With this model, we demonstrate how planetary conditions affect the growth of waves. We find that the threshold for wave generation is lower for liquids with weaker surface tension and under higher atmospheric pressure and lower gravity. We also find that waves grow taller in less dense liquids and under higher atmospheric pressure and lower gravity.
Wind waves in Jezero crater, Mars under 200 kPa atmospheric pressure across a range of surface winds speeds (u). Mars today does not have stable lakes on its surface, but there is extensive evidence for fluvial erosion and deposition in its past. 