Artikel,
Saltation impact as a means for raising dust on Mars
Planetary and Space Science, 50 (2): 151--155 (2002)
Zusammenfassung
Experiments were conducted under atmospheric pressures appropriate
for Earth and Mars to determine the efficiency of sand in saltation
as a means for raising dust into the atmosphere under wind speeds
which would otherwise be too low for dust entrainment. Experiments
involving intimate mixtures of sand and dust (1:1 ratio by mass)
showed that after an initial flurry of activity of a few seconds
duration, the bed stabilized with little movement of either sand
or dust. In contrast, sands set into saltation upwind from dust beds
were efficient in injecting the dust into suspension, with low-pressure
Martian conditions being some five times more efficient than terrestrial
conditions. This result is attributed to the higher kinetic energies
of the saltating grains on Mars, which is a consequence of the higher
velocities of the grains. These results suggest that sands saltating
across dust beds on Mars are an effective means for setting dust
into suspension. (C) 2002 Published by Elsevier Science Ltd.
