Mars: Abundant Recurring Slope Lineae (RSL) Following the Planet-Encircling Dust Event (PEDE) of 2018
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Following the planet-encircling dust event (PEDE) of Mars Year (MY) 34, MRO/HiRISE has seen many more candidate RSL than in typical Mars years. They were imaged at more than 285 unique locations from August 2018 to August 2019, 157 where RSL had not been seen previously. Of the locations where RSL had been observed in the same season of prior Mars years, 34 sites had more extensive RSL coverage than MY29-33; none had less extensive RSL. 150 active RSL sites were identified in the southern middle latitudes (SMLs) versus the 36/year average during MY28-33. RSL are present on ~87% of the HiRISE images covering steep, rocky slopes in the SML in southern summer of MY34, rather than ~40% as in prior years. Post-PEDE RSL are also present over a wider combined range of latitude, slope aspect, and season than in prior years. These RSL sites usually show evidence for recent dust deposition. There are clear dust devil tracks in 54% of post-PEDE images with RSL, and in 73% of such images in the SMLs and L=236°-360° (late southern spring to the end of summer), where and when dust devils are most active. The tracks indicate dust lifting, by several mechanisms. We suggest that dust lifting processes on steep slopes may initiate and sustain RSL formed from flows of dust (perhaps clumped) and/or sand that is destabilized by dust movement. The otherwise puzzling recurrence and year-to-year variability of RSL activity can be at least partly explained by variable yearly dust fallout.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.003 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".