A MAJOR “Marsquake” may have struck the Red Planet in the past three years, according to research which suggests significant geological activity on Earth’s neighbour.

Images taken by Nasa’s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft show deep gullies in a sand dune and tracks left by rolling boulders that did not exist when the same feature was photographed in 2002.

The changes could have come about as a result of the Martian equivalent of an earthquake, indicating that the planet is more geologically active than has generally been thought.

The surveyor’s high-resolution cameras show more than a dozen tracks on a hill that were almost certainly left by tumbling boulders between November 2003 and December 2004.

“It is possible they were set in motion by strong wind or by a ‘Marsquake’,” said Michael Malin, principal investigator for the Mars orbiter camera on board the Global Surveyor.

Also significant are two gullies photographed in April, 900m (984yds) long and 30m to 40m wide, which were not present when the same region was last surveyed.

“To see new gullies and other changes in Mars surface features on a timespan of a few years presents us with a more active, dynamic planet than many suspected before Mars Global Surveyor got there,” Michael Meyer, the mission’s chief scientist, said.

Nasa scientists have also established that frozen carbon dioxide deposits near the planet’s south pole have shrunk for three summers in a row, indicating possible climate change.

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