Global catalog of alluvial fans and other fan-shaped features on Mars, with morphology characteristics

Alluvial fans on Mars record evidence of depositional environments that represent the final era of potential habitability on the Martian surface. Alluvial fan deposits can often look similar to deltaic or fluvial systems in visible remote sensing images but are firmed in depositional and climatic environments that are distinct from those that lead to other radial depositional features. In order to better constrain the regional and global depositional environments and further inform the analysis of the sedimentary history of Mars, this study expands the global catalog of alluvial fans on Mars by adding newly identified features and characterizing all new and previously identified features based on morphologic parameters. Based on how closely they fit the morphologic definition of alluvial fans, as established by terrestrial sedimentology, each feature is classified as either an alluvial fan or another depositional feature.

The .csv files made available here contain the full global database of features investigated in the referenced paper (Mondro et al., 2022). Five different .csv files are included, divided according to feature classification category based on the morphological parameters described in Mondro, et al. 2022.  The five classification categories are: alluvial fan, possible alluvial fan, non-alluvial radial feature (NARF), small feature, and non-fan.

For each individual depositional feature, the database contains the lat/long location of the fan apex, a reference to the first publication to identify it, the results of the characterization parameters, and the final morphologic classifications. The characterization parameters are planform shape, radius (meters), average radial slope (degrees), adjusted average radial slope (degrees), and radial profile shape. When a parameter is listed as NA, the morphologic categorization for that class of feature did not include that specific parameter.

See referenced paper for more detail on methodology and discussion of results:

Mondro, C.A., J.E. Moersch, C.M. Fedo. An updated global survey of alluvial fans on Mars: Distinguishing alluvia fans from other fan-shaped features through morphologic characterization. Icarus, 398C. doi: 10.1016/j.icarus.2022.115238.

Please reference the above paper when using this dataset.