Estimating Grain Sizes of Martian Dune Sand: A Freeware-Based Methodology With Initial Results

Abstract

Grain sizes of Martian sand dunes are critical sedimentological data on sand provenance and transport pathways. Thermal inertia values are used to characterize the grain sizes of dune sand. Most early characterizations involved single dune fields. Recent work based on global data sets has provided more wide-spread dune sand locations, though these data sets include the non-sandy interdune areas. To provide a more accurate grain size characterization, we leverage a global thermal inertia data set, a global dune database and a global imaging mosaic to develop a freeware-based methodology for deriving grain sizes. This methodology involves delineation of sand-only areas within dune fields and collection of thermal inertia values from those areas. We consider a unimodal histogram of values with a mode <∼350 thermal inertia units (J m⁻² K⁻¹ s^−1/2) to imply an effective exclusion of non-sand surfaces. Application of this methodology to dune fields for which thermal inertia values have been previous derived shows our results fall within the envelope of those values. We apply our methodology to tropical dune fields on Mars for which Dust Cover Index data imply dust-free surfaces. Conversion of these thermal inertia values to sand grain sizes yields a range of sand classifications of fine sand to granules. Comparison of sand size classifications with geographic location shows grain size ranges that are distinctive by location, consistent with local sourcing. This work points toward geographically diverse sand formation mechanisms yielding diverse grain sizes, while providing a freeware-based and thus widely accessible method for expanding the derivation of these critical data.