A Structural Origin for the Warrego Rise, Thaumasia Highlands, Mars, and Implications for the Origin of Warrego Valles

The Warrego Rise is a topographical high located in the Thaumasia Mountain Belt, Mars. Its southern slopes are incised by Warrego Valles, a valley network offered as an apparent “smoking gun” by those who ascribe dendritic channel networks to a warmer, wetter climate early in Mars history. Here, we investigate a new formation hypothesis for the Rise, and show that its structure and morphology are consistent with being a culmination caused by imbricate stacking. Such stacking can bring lenses of ice/salt up to high elevation, where fluids resulting from frictional heating or deep aquifers could travel along fractures to the surface, and flow down the Rise, dominantly incising Warrego Valles.