Thick bands of ice (blue) have been spotted in steep cliff faces.
"Thick sheets of water ice, some barely buried beneath the surface and likely more than 100 meters thick, have been spotted on several Martian cliff faces. Geologists hoping to study the past climate history of Mars — and visionaries planning future visits by astronauts — got some great news with the discovery that exposures of water ice have been spotted on cliff faces. The widely scattered outcrops, seven in the southern hemisphere and one in the north, lie at latitudes of 55° to 58° — far from the planet's polar caps of water (and carbon-dioxide) ice. Colin Dundas (U.S. Geological Survey, Flagstaff) led the team that made the discovery using two instruments aboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. First, detailed images from the spacecraft's HiRISE camera revealed banded layers in the scarps' steep faces that had a bluer color than their surroundings. Then near-infrared maps from the CRISM spectrometer confirmed that the layers were strongly enriched in water ice. ..."
Sky & Telescope
Science: Ice cliffs spotted on Mars
Washington Post: 'A fantastic find': Mars hides thick sheets of ice just below the surface (Video)
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