Results and Discussion
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At 68 percent, articles written by geographers working on Mars predominantly
fall within physical geography. GIScience is a distant second, with 30
percent of articles involving geographers focussing on geospatial
technologies. Interestingly, there is already a small presence of human
geography articles, at 2 percent!
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Breaking these basic divisions out into subfields, physical geographers' work
has three main preoccupations: fluvial geomorphology, aolian geomorphology,
and cryogeography. These do play to the traditional strengths and concerns of
terrestrial physical geographers, who are drawn to the geomorphologies of
gradational processes more than tectonic processes. Such geographers have
found familiar terrain on Mars.
The balance of activity, though, is shifted on Mars, with a much greater
salience of æolian and cryospheric concerns on Mars than on Earth.
Indeed, æolian geomorphology has always been a relatively minor subfield
on Earth but has become a major focus on Mars. Fluvial geomorphology is
prominent on Mars as on Earth, but the balance of specific concerns is shifted
on Mars. There is concern with the development of groundwater- and
precipitation-fed stream networks, as on Earth, but with a focus on
establishing whether Mars had once had a denser, warmer atmosphere. There is
also a striking emphasis on megaflood geomorphology.
These shifts in the balance of physical geographers' attention reflect the
greater prominence on Mars of æolian and cryospheric processes and of
megaflood processes within fluvial geomorphology. Physical geographers
interested in these processes have found a whole new terrain in which to
explore their passions and a whole new inspiration for their work here on
Earth. That is, a great deal of physical geographers' work approaches Mars
through what is called Mars analogue research. Landscapes on Earth that
promise useful metaphors for interpreting martian imagery become the subject
of field and lab work here.
Other themes show up in the physical geography of Mars, including structural
geomorphology of volcanoes and of impact craters and weathering processes.
Mechanical and chemical weathering processes and minerologies have been
studied by geographers, and there's been some attention paid to biochemical
weathering on Earth to assist identification of sites on Mars that could bear
attention in the search for life on Mars.
In GIScience, all the major branches are represented among geographers' work
on Mars and rather more evenly than seen in martian physical geography. That
said, remote sensing and spectroscopy are especially salient, which is not
surprising, given complete reliance on remotely sensed information at this
point in Mars exploration. Also prominent is work analyzing features of
martian landscapes with statistical techniques, which is a little surprising.
This is mostly classical statistics, the kind you do in statistical packages
or spreadsheets rather than GIS. Cartography and GISystems are active
pursuits, too.
Human geography is represented in the activities of two geographers. Maria
Lane has focussed on the intellectual history of Mars exploration,
particularly in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, while Jason
Dittmer has examined the parallels between narratives of Mars exploration and
policy and those of imperialism and colonialism.
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Geographers vary in the levels of individual productivity on martian topics.
I was able to find only one Mars-focussed article for more than half of them,
perhaps a one-off article or collaboration never repeated ... or perhaps the
first salvo in a new career. Of the 47 people with multiple articles on Mars,
the great majority, or 29 of them, had two or three articles. Another 10 had
four or five articles, and the remaining 8 individuals had anywhere from six
through nine articles: the martian superstars! Indeed, the distribution of
Mars articles follows a classic magnitude and frequency curve, a very smooth
power law!
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The geography of the martian geographers is not representative of the broader
geographic community. Three countries dominate Mars geography: the USA,
Canada, and the UK. What's surprising, however, is how very disproportionate
the Canadian contribution is. With one tenth the number of geographers as the
United States, Canada has produced one quarter of the geographers of Mars and
over one third of the Mars superstars! The US, with its much larger
professional base, has produced one third of martian geographers and half the
superstars.
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In terms of research output, within the United States, the densest
concentration of Mars geography articles comes from California (30 out of 222)
and Arizona (with 20). In Canada, Manitoba Province is the most active
producer of Mars geography articles, with 28. Alberta follows with 13 and
Province Québec with 12.
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In Europe and the Middle East, England is the heavy hitter with 32. Other
notable contingents come from Germany and Israel, with some activity in
France, India, and Egypt. Outside of India and Israel, there's no activity
elsewhere in Asia.
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There is some activity in Australia and New Zealand, and
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Africa has a few authors in Egypt and South Africa.
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South America is the only continent (besides Antarctica) without any
geographers of Mars.
Mars geography, then, seems an obsession of the Global North, a legacy of the
wealth of empire. It also holds the cultural hearth of the space program
itself. It is overwhelmingly an English language phenomenon, with even the
authors in Germany, Israel, and France writing the preponderance of their
articles in English.
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The geographers of Mars are skewed in gender balance. Fully 85 percent of
martian geographers are male and only 15 percent are female. This compares
unflatteringly with the distribution of genders among the AAG's membership,
where about 30 percent of AAG members are female. Interestingly, however, of
the eight martian superstars, three are female, resulting in that seeming
softening of the gender imbalance in terms of the numbers of articles
produced.
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Most Mars geographers collaborate with other authors, as is common in physical
geography in general: Only nine have only published Mars research as sole
authors. The other 91 have had a varying mix of research partners.
Non-geographers are typically found on co-author teams working on Mars,
commonly geologists, planetary scientists, astronomers, and engineers.
Twenty-eight Mars geographers collaborate exclusively with non-geographers.
The other 63 have collaborated at least once with another geographer on at
least one article. Most commonly, such geographers have partnered with only
one other geographer on the research team: This was the case with 26. Fairly
common is partnering with anywhere from two to four other geographers, with 34
geographers in such multi-geographer teams. Three other geographers are very
well-connected in the small Mars geography community, having found anywhere
from five to nine other geography research partners in their various projects.
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Geographers publish their work on Mars in a great variety of venues: refereed
journals and proceedings and in anthologies and books. Among the 54 refereed
journals and proceedings, two journals absolutely dominate martian
geographers' publications: the Journal of Geophysical Research and
Icarus. Another three journals have attracted a large portion of the
community: the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference proceedings,
Geomorphology, and Planetary and Space Science.
Geomorphology is the only one regularly recognized by physical
geographers as one of their "own publications." Physical geographers in
general do tend to publish in interdisciplinary geoscience journals rather
than in the classic geography journals, so the martian geographers, who are
predominantly physical geographers, are simply following common practice in
their quadrant of geography.