Recent progress in studying orbital forcing of late Amazonian climate changes on Mars from Polar Layered Deposits

The polar layered deposits (PLD) of Mars can provide deep insight into paleoclimate changes over the planet’s last several million years. Since the 1960s, researchers have studied almost all aspects of Martian PLD properties, searching for patterns that might reveal periodic characteristics of the planet’s climate history. Although much progress has been made in our understanding of orbital periodicities reflected in the PLD, questions remain regarding how Martian orbital changes have affected the formation of the PLD and regarding the extent of climate information that is recorded in the PLD. Future studies of PLD should be carried out via integrated research that targets multi-profiles throughout the entire Martian polar regions that would clarify their general features at the hemisphere scale. Numerical modeling, coupled with modern observations of dust and water vapor transportation, should greatly advance our understanding of planetary climate evolution. Furthermore, future landing missions may help to clarify the paleoclimatic characteristics reflected in the PLD by drilling into these layered deposits and measuring mineralogical and geochemical compositions of the drilled samples.