How do liquids, sediments, and solutes move at the surface of rocky and ICY worlds, and how do differences in solution and sediment transport shape the evolution of landforms from channels, to…

This $99,464 grant award from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) supports the development of the Planetary Hydrogeology, Habitability, and Surface Environments Research (PHHASER) program at Colgate University. The objective is to investigate how liquids, sediments, and solutes move on the surfaces of rocky and icy worlds, and how these processes shape landforms like channels, craters, and recurring slope lineae. The grant will fund the establishment of an experimental facility and analog research program to explore the hydrological, physical, and sedimentary properties of planetary analog materials under cold, dry, and low-pressure conditions. This work builds on a previous NASA-funded project titled "The Titan Tumbler: Investigating Endmember Sedimentological Processes on Titan." The grant does not have a set-aside designation and was awarded directly to Colgate University, a private liberal arts college in Hamilton, New York, without the involvement of any major subcontractors.

How do liquids, sediments, and solutes move at the surface of rocky and ICY worlds, and how do differences in solution and sediment transport shape the evolution of landforms from channels, to craters, to recurring slope lineae? The objective of this proposal is to support the development of the phhaser (planetary hydrogeology, habitability, and surface environments research) program at colgate university, led by DR. Joseph levy, a new assistant professor of geology. Levy focuses on sedimentary and surface processes in hypothermal (cold) and hyper-arid (dry) environments, by combining planetary data analysis with terrestrial analog studies and benchtop simulations that link polar analogs and planetary processes via mechanistic transport experiments. Support of the phhaser program will build on colgates commitment to undergraduate student discovery in planetary science through its geology and astrogeophysics majors the latter, a unique program among liberal arts university interdisciplinary programs that connects technically adept and mathematically advanced undergraduate students􀁈 passion for planetary science with cutting edge research in planetary geology. This proposal builds on the ECF-linked solar system workings award 80NSSC17K0092 .the titan tumbler: investigating endmember sedimentological processes on titan,􀁈 to expand the solar system geology reach of levys lab, allowing similar sediment transport and groundwater processes to be measured under mars-analog conditions. This new proposal leverages techniques and equipment developed in the titan tumbler project to explore new sedimentary and hydrological systemsin particular, dilute aqueous and concentrated brine systems. The purpose of this proposal is to develop an experimental facility and analog research program needed to explore the hydrological, physical, and sedimentary properties of planetary analog materials under cold and dry conditions and at low atmospheric pressures. The phhaser group will lead forward with new methods to understand pore-water and ground-water transport and its role in mediating dryand liquid-related mass transport under mars-like conditions. These experiments will help determine what in situ and orbital observations are needed to most effectively discriminate between competing hypotheses for the formation of recurring slope lineae on mars and briny flows through regolith elsewhere in the solar system. Our working model is that there is long-term potential to understand the intrinsic hydro-GEO-chemical properties of planetary-analog sediments and to use these analog materials experiments to interpret remote sensing observations of regolith surfaces. Rather than focusing on surface properties, e.g., spectra of a library of hydrated salts or on mass transport via overland or regolith dry flow, we propose to develop new techniques for assessing the intrinsic properties of sediments, liquids, and solutes under low temperatures and pressures, in particular: permeability, hydraulic conductivity, matric potential, and water activity. These properties are independent of gravitational acceleration, making them ideal material properties for understanding planetary analog saline fluid flows in earth labs. Critically, this proposal begins to bridge the physical, geological, chemical, and hydrological processes that generate habitable conditions and to understand them not in isolation, but in more realistic assemblages of sediment, water, and solutes. ECF funds will help develop the phhaser instrument suite in order to provide a long-term, low-cost facility for examining the intrinsic physical and hydrogeological properties of planetary analog materials in the context of fluid flow and sediment transport. The proposal budget focuses on equipment-level instrumentation that, with appropriate maintenance, will serve as a long-lasting investment in analog materials characterization and landform evolution experimentation.