When he's not in Madison County, Howard spends hours at his computer creating models of the surface of Mars, trying to determine whether its channels were created by snowmelt or rainfall. Both projects concern geofluvial morphology, the study of how water changes landscapes over time. Assisted by two Ph.D. students, who are partly funded by the U.S. Geological Survey, Howard is investigating areas in Madison altered by the floods, looking at changes in stream channels and slope failures. Their conclusions regarding what areas are most susceptible to flooding can be very useful to officials who make zoning decisions, he said. One house in Madison was pushed 30 feet.
Massive floods occur about once every thousand years.
While Howard's local research involves visiting and investigating areas that were flooded, to study Mars he relies on computer simulations and photographs, such as those taken by the Sojourner, the rover on the recent Mars Pathfinder mission. These photographs suggest that, though Mars currently has an arid environment, water channels on its surface indicate that this was not always the case, Howard said. There are a variety of different theories about how that much water was mobilized, he said. In addition to floods, water might have come in more gradual forms, he said. Comets might have added enough water and CO2 to create a global ocean.