Mars Ice Deposit Holds as Much Water as Lake Superior

[Toro]

[quote]Frozen beneath a region of cracked and pitted plains on Mars lies about as much water as what's in Lake Superior, largest of the Great Lakes, researchers using NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have determined.

Scientists examined part of Mars' Utopia Planitia region, in the mid-northern latitudes, with the orbiter's ground-penetrating Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument. Analyses of data from more than 600 overhead passes with the onboard radar instrument reveal a deposit more extensive in area than the state of New Mexico. The deposit ranges in thickness from about 260 feet (80 meters) to about 560 feet (170 meters), with a composition that's 50 to 85 percent water ice, mixed with dust or larger rocky particles.

At the latitude of this deposit -- about halfway from the equator to the pole -- water ice cannot persist on the surface of Mars today. It sublimes into water vapor in the planet's thin, dry atmosphere. The Utopia deposit is shielded from the atmosphere by a soil covering estimated to be about 3 to 33 feet (1 to 10 meters) thick.
[/quote]
[url]http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2016-299[/url]

[Provost]

Well, at least any colonization expeditions won't lack for water. Provided they bring digging equipment, of course.

[kylel999]

So is it all ice or is there liquid water underneath it?

[LoneWolf_Recon]

[QUOTE=Kylel999;51419582]So is it all ice or is there liquid water underneath it?[/QUOTE]

Ice as far as they know.

The region they're digging in is [URL="https://tools.wmflabs.org/geohack/geohack.php?pagename=Utopia_Planitia&params=46.7_N_117.5_E_globe:mars_type:landmark"]towards the poles[/URL] and the surface temperature (at max) barely comes close to melting point of ice.

If we dig far enough or in some more geologically active regions, we could probably find liquid water.