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Thursday, February 28, 2002 A Recent Mars Flood Recent Mars flood. Credit: NASA (CNN) - In the 1970s, satellite pictures from the Viking spacecraft convinced many scientists that colossal water floods carved great gullies on Mars 2 billion years ago. But now, new evidence says that more water than that contained in Lake Erie likely gushed over the surface about 10 million years ago, said planetary geologists investigating photographs from Mars Global Surveyor. The photograph was made with data from a laser topographic instrument on the satellite. "Athabasca Valles is an almost new component in the martian hydrological cycle," said Devon Burr, a doctoral student in geosciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "The water here gushed from volcano-tectonic fissures. While the fissures themselves may be older, the latest eruption of the water was probably only about 10 million years ago." @ 20:19 EST