The feature was named by Schiaparelli in 1888 after Mt Casius in Egypt, famous in antiquity for the nearby coastal marshes in which whole armies were reputed to have drowned.

[4] The high latitude Casius quadrangle bears several features that are believed to indicate the presence of ground ice.

Places on Mars that display polygonal ground may indicate where future colonists can find water ice.

Laboratory experiments confirm that impacts into ice result in a "ring mold shape".

[20] High resolution pictures taken with HiRISE reveal that some of the surfaces of concentric crater fill are covered with strange patterns called closed-cell and open-cell brain terrain.

Many features on Mars, including many in Casius quadrangle, are believed to contain large amounts of ice.

[24] Furthermore, at this high tilt, stores of solid carbon dioxide (dry ice) sublimate, thereby increasing the atmospheric pressure.

[27] When the tilt begins to return to lower values, the ice sublimates (turns directly to a gas) and leaves behind a lag of dust.

[28][29] The lag deposit caps the underlying material so with each cycle of high tilt levels, some ice-rich mantle remains behind.

[30] Note, that the smooth surface mantle layer probably represents only relative recent material.

A detailed discussion of layering with many Martian examples can be found in Sedimentary Geology of Mars.

Martian gullies are small, incised networks of narrow channels and their associated downslope sediment deposits, found on the planet of Mars.

First discovered on images from Mars Global Surveyor, they occur on steep slopes, especially on the walls of craters.

A subclass of gullies is also found cut into the faces of sand dunes which themselves considered to be quite young.

On the basis of their form, aspects, positions, and location amongst and apparent interaction with features thought to be rich in water ice, many researchers believed that the processes carving the gullies involve liquid water.

Before-and-after images demonstrated the timing of this activity coincided with seasonal carbon-dioxide frost and temperatures that would not have allowed for liquid water.

[52][53][54] Scalloped depressions are believed to form from the removal of subsurface material, possibly interstitial ice, by sublimation (direct transition of a material from the solid to the gas phase with no intermediate liquid stage).

[55] This topography may be of great importance for future colonization of Mars because it may point to deposits of pure ice.

[56] On November 22, 2016, NASA reported finding a large amount of underground ice in the Utopia Planitia region of Mars.

[58][59] The volume of water ice in the region were based on measurements from the ground-penetrating radar instrument on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, called SHARAD.

[60][61][62] Layers along slopes, especially along crater walls are believed to be the remains of a once wide spread material that has mostly been eroded away.

Some layered features appear very smooth due to the erosion by millions and maybe billions of years by the action of the wind.

During certain climate periods water vapor leaves polar ice and enters the atmosphere.

The water returns to the ground at lower latitudes as deposits of frost or snow mixed with dust.

Some of the material comes from deep underground; therefore, samples gathered from that place can tell us about minerals under the surface.

Because of this relationship, researchers have found that many Martian craters contain a great deal of material; much of it is believed to be ice deposited when the climate was different.

Counting craters to determine relative ages of planetary surfaces has been used throughout the solar system.

This is a result of the thin atmosphere not having sufficient power to push sand grains up and over the crater wall.

Within a few weeks, the dark track assumes its former bright colour, either by being re-covered through wind action or due to surface oxidation through exposure to sunlight and air.

Due to the thin atmosphere on the Red planet, ice does not melt--rather it goes directly in the air by a process called sublimation.