Volcanic eruptions are not a major threat to the Martian landscape, but an area about the size of Alaska was potentially covered with lava as recently as one million years ago. The findings are detailed in a study published December 15 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets and reveal that the presence of large fissures could have resulted in major flooding events. The reactions from the mixture of lava and water from the floods may have created an environment that could harbor life.
[Related: Giant quake that shook Mars for hours had a surprising source.]
A geologically ‘dead’ planet?
Planet Earth is home to very active plate tectonics and these constantly churning chunks of crust alter our planet’s surface. Mars has long been considered a geologically “dead” planet due to its lack of plate tectonics and volcanic activity has never been observed there. However, some recent discoveries have questioned the notion that Mars was always this way, including evidence that a giant mantle plume underneath the region of Elysium Planitia was once behind intense seismic and volcanic activity in the planet’s relatively recent past. Elysium Planitia has the youngest terrain on the Red Planet, so studying it helps scientists better understand its past, including more hydrological and volcanic events.
In this new study, a team from the University of Arizona and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, combined images taken with NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter and measurements from ground-penetrating radar to recreate a 3D model of every individual lava flow they could detect evidence of in Elysium Planitia. The survey revealed more than 40 volcanic events in the planet’s recent past. One of the largest flows possibly filled a Martian valley named Athabasca Valles with almost 1,000 cubic miles of basalt.
“Elysium Planitia was volcanically much more active than previously thought and might even still be volcanically alive…
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