The environmental effects of very large bolide impacts on early Mars explored with a hierarchy of numerical models

The origin of the presence of geological and mineralogical evidence that liquid water flowed on the surface of early Mars is now a 50-year-old mystery. It has been proposed (Segura et al., 2002, 2008, 2012) that bolide impacts could have triggered a long-term climate change, producing precipitation and runoff that may have altered the surface of Mars in a way that could explain (at least part of) this evidence. Here we use a hierarchy of numerical models (a 3-D Global Climate Model, a 1-D radiative-convective model and a 2-D Mantle Dynamics model) to test that hypothesis and more generally explore the environmental effects of very large bolide impacts (Dimpactor > 100 km, or Dcrater > 600 km) on the atmosphere, surface and interior of early Mars.