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The detection of geologically recent channels at the end of the twentieth century rapidly suggested that liquid water could have been present on Mars up to recent times. A mechanism involving melting of water ice during ice ages in the last several million years progressively emerged during years following the first observations of these gullies. However, the recent discovery of current activity within gullies now suggests a paradigm shift where a contemporary CO 2  ice‐based and liquid water‐free mechanism may form all gullies. Here we perform a survey of near‐infrared observations and construct time sequences of water and CO 2  ice formation and sublimation at active gully sites. We observe that all major new erosive features such as channel development or lengthening systematically occur where and, if applicable, when CO 2  ice is observed or probable. CO 2  ice layers are, however, estimated to be only 1 mm to 1 cm thick for low‐latitude sites, which may have implication for potential formation mechanisms. We also observe that part of current gully activity, notably the formation of some new deposits, is poorly compatible with the presence of CO 2  ice. In particular, all new bright deposits reported in the literature have a low CO 2  ice probability while water ice should be present at most sites. Our results confirm that CO 2  ice is a key factor controlling present‐day channel development on Mars and show that other mechanisms, potentially involving sublimation or melting of water ice, are also contributing to current gully activity.

Identification of Mars gully activity types associated with ice composition