Provisionally designated Noctis Mons, the newly-discovered volcano is located just south of Mars’ equator, in Eastern Noctis Labyrinthus, west of Valles Marineris, the planet’s vast canyon system.
Noctis Mons reaches 9,022 m (29,600 feet) in elevation and spans 450 km (280 miles) in width.
Its gigantic size and complex modification history indicate that it has been active for a very long time.
In its southeastern part lies a thin, recent volcanic deposit beneath which glacier ice is likely still present.
This combined giant volcano and possible glacier ice discovery is significant, as it points to an exciting new location to study Mars’ geologic evolution through time, search for life, and explore with robots and humans in the future.
“We were examining the geology of an area where we had found the remains of a glacier last year when we realized we were inside a huge and deeply eroded volcano,” said Dr. Pascal Lee, a planetary scientist with the SETI Institute and the Mars Institute based at NASA Ames Research Center.
Several clues, taken together, give away the volcanic nature of the jumble of layered mesas and canyons in this eastern part of Noctis Labyrinthus.
The central summit area is marked by several elevated mesas forming an arc, reaching a regional high and sloping downhill away from the summit area.
The gentle outer slopes extend out to 225 km (140 miles) away in different directions.
A caldera remnant — the remains of a collapsed volcanic crater once host to a lava lake — can be seen near the center of the structure.
Lava flows, pyroclastic deposits (made of volcanic particulate materials such as ash, cinders, pumice and tephra) and hydrated mineral deposits occur in several areas within the structure’s perimeter.
“This area of Mars is known to have a wide variety of hydrated minerals spanning a long stretch of Martian history,” said Sourabh Shubham, a graduate student at the University of Maryland.
“A volcanic setting for…
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