WASHINGTON (TIP): Narrow ridges found in Martian craters may actually be fossilized remnants of underground cracks through which water once flowed on the red planet, a new study claims. Water flowing beneath the surface of ancient Mars suggests life may once have been possible on the Red planet, according to a new analysis by researchers from Brown University.

The study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, bolsters the idea that the subsurface environment on Mars once had an active hydrology and could be a good place to search for evidence of past life. The study conducted by Lee Saper and Jack Mustard suggest the ridges, many of them hundreds of metres in length and a few metres wide, had been noted in previous research, but how they had formed was not known.

Saper and Mustard thought they might once have been faults and fractures that formed underground when impact events rattled the planet’s crust.Water, if present in the subsurface, would have circulated through the cracks, slowly filling them in with mineral deposits, which would have been harder than the surrounding rocks. As those surrounding rocks eroded away over millions of years, the seams of mineral-hardened material would remain in place, forming the ridges seen today.