Trace Evidence from Mars’ Past: Fingerprinting Transverse Aeolian Ridges

Abstract

Linear dunes and human fingerprints share many characteristics. Both have ridges, valleys, and defects (minutiae) in the form of bifurcations and termination of ridgeline features. For dunes, determining how defects vary across linear and transverse dunefields is critical to understanding the physics of their formative processes and the physical forcing mechanisms that produce dunefields. Unfortunately, manual extraction of defect locations and higher order characteristics (type, orientation, and quality) from remotely sensed imagery is both time-consuming and inconsistent. This problem is further exacerbated when, in the case of imagery from sensors in orbit around Mars, we are unable to field check interpretations. In this research, we apply a novel technique for extracting defects from multiple imagery sources utilizing a robust and well-documented fingerprint minutiae detection and extraction software (MINDTCT: MINutiae DecTeCTion) developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). We apply our ‘fingerprinting’ approach to Transverse Aeolian Ridges (TARs), relict aeolian features commonly seen on the surface of Mars, whose depositional and formative processes are poorly understood. Our algorithmic approach demonstrates that automating the rapid extraction of defects from orbitally-derived high-resolution imagery of Mars is feasible and produces maps that allow the quantification and analysis of these features.

Keywords

• Linear dunes
• Transverse Aeolian Ridges (TARs)
• defects
• minutiae
• fingerprints
• Mars