An ancient Sandstorm recorded by supercritical climbing wind ripple strata, Gale crater, Mars.

ABSTRACT Direct evidence of isolated transient atmospheric events are rarely preserved in the geological record, yet when observed can provide valuable insight into ancient atmospheric and sediment transport processes. Climbing wind ripple strata (specifically termed supercritical climbing translatent strata) were identified for the first time on Mars by the Curiosity rover within a sequence of aeolian strata in Gale crater. Here, six interstratified packages of climbing and planar wind ripple strata are described and interpreted. They resulted from fluctuating wind speed that varied sediment transport rates, combined with flow separation and expansion associated with a leeward slope. These conditions caused rapid deposition of sediment onto migrating wind ripples, occasionally resulting in supercritical angles of climb, recording gusting winds that originated from the south. Interstratified packages of climbing wind ripple strata uniquely record a broader sustained event such as a sandstorm, potentially lasting several hours or more. DATASET SI Banham Geology 2026 An ancient sandstorm in Gale crater.pptx is a power point presentation with aditional image data & interpretations. Pro3D OPCs.zip Contains pro3D datasets used for the Ripple Index Measurements. Figures 1-4 appear in the Geology paper Other images are additional supporting interpretations. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This research was funded by the U.K. Space Agency, ST/Y000137/1, ST/S001506/1 (S.G. Banham); ST/X002373/1, ST/S001492/1 (S. Gupta); and ST/W002566/3 (J. Davis); the Austrian Research Agency, ASAP 892662 Mars-3D (G. Paar); National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) contract 80NM0018D0004 (A. Vasavada) (through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) & California Institute of Technology); and JPL subcontract 1516826 to MSSS (R.M.E. Williams; L. C. Kah). This research used data from the NASA Mars Science Laboratory mission. Mastcam mosaics were processed by the Mastcam team at Malin Space Science Systems (MSSS). Elena Favaro, Makenzie Day and two anonymous reviewers are thanked for their constructive comments. SOFTWARE VRVis PRo3D: a 3D viewer for exploration and geologic interpretation of planetary surface reconstructions. (2025, April 02; Version 5.0.0) [Software]. https://github.com/pro3d-space/PRo3D/ Details about the software can be found at: https://pro3d.space/.