Mars is certainly not the rich, growing environment the Earth is, and its not almost as friendly to water (or with life) as our world. But it might not be the boring place we believe it to be. The geological activity on the Red Planet has mostly silenced down, it may not be totally silent, a new research study shows. Mars might have an active mantle plume with a size of about 4,000 km.
There are a number of valley networks on Mars, in addition to numerous geological functions believed to be carved by water. While Mars may not have liquid water now (or not much), it appears to have had a great deal of it in the past. Mars appears to have no real tectonic activity now, but it may have been much more active in the past.
However look a bit better at Mars, and youll see more fascinating things.
Mars appears to have no genuine tectonic activity now, but it might have been much more active in the past.
The presumed plume head attributes are similar to terrestrial plumes that are connected to the formation of big igneous provinces in the world. Cerberus Fossae is likewise the place of Mars latest volcanic episode some 53,000 years back.
” In terms of what you anticipate to see with an active mantle plume, Elysium Planitia is checking all the right boxes,” Broquet said, adding that the finding presents a difficulty for models used by planetary scientists to study the thermal development of planets. “This mantle plume has actually impacted a location of Mars approximately comparable to that of the continental United States. Future studies will need to find a method to account for a large mantle plume that wasnt expected to be there.
” Previous work by our group discovered evidence in Elysium Planitia for the youngest volcanic eruption known on Mars,” Andrews-Hanna stated. “It developed a small surge of volcanic ash around 53,000 years earlier, which in geologic time is basically yesterday.”
Artists impression of an active mantle plume– a big blob of resilient and warm rock– increasing from deep inside Mars and rising Elysium Planitia, a plain within the planets northern lowlands. Credit: Adrien Broquet & & Audrey Lasbordes
NASAs InSight lander detected constant however low seismic activity, as well as a number of considerable earthquakes– I mean marsquakes. Now, researchers Adrien Broquet and Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna think theyve traced that activity to a just recently formed system of cracks called Cerberus Fossae. They discovered that a 4,000-km-diameter active mantle plume head would best describe the observations.
Mantle plumes are areas of the mantle that are hotter than the surrounding environment, that makes them more resilient. Consider them as comparable to hot blobs rising in lava lamps. These plumes erupt as flood basalts and produce huge volcanic plains, as we also see in the world, for example around the Caribbean.
Artists impression of an active mantle plume– a large blob of buoyant and warm rock– rising from deep inside Mars and pressing up Elysium Planitia, a plain within the worlds northern lowlands. “This mantle plume has affected an area of Mars roughly comparable to that of the continental United States.
” We know that Mars does not have plate tectonics, so we investigated whether the activity we see in the Cerberus Fossae region might be the result of a mantle plume,” Broquet said.
” We used to think that InSight landed in among the most geologically uninteresting areas on Mars– a nice flat surface that should be approximately representative of the planets lowlands,” Broquet included. “Instead, our study shows that InSight landed right on top of an active plume head.”
” Plume activity supplies a description for the local gravity and topography highs, recent volcanism, shift from compressional to extensional tectonics and continuous seismicity,” the scientists write in the study.
For all its Earth-like attributes, Mars is surprisingly barren: it doesnt have a thick atmosphere, it does not have any seas or rivers, and it doesnt even have active geology. Mars might have an active mantle plume with a diameter of about 4,000 km.
“Our results show that the interior of Mars is geodynamically active today, and indicate that volcanism has been driven by mantle plumes from the formation of the Hesperian volcanic provinces and Tharsis in the past to Elysium Planitia today,” the authors of the study conclude.
A minimum of, this is what researchers believed till they sent a seismometer to Mars.
Artists impression of an active mantle plume– a big blob of warm and resilient rock– rising from deep inside Mars and pressing up Elysium Planitia, a plain within the worlds northern lowlands. Volcanism at Elysium Planitia originates from the Cerberus Fossae, highlighted in red, a set of young cracks that stretches for more than 800 miles throughout the Martian surface.
As the closest planet to the Earth, Mars has been the subject of human expedition from centuries. Its been studied thoroughly through remote sensing techniques, in addition to a series of robotic objectives that were sent out to the surface of Mars. The surface area geology of Mars is intriguing enough. Its characterized by enormous volcanic swaths covered by the famous red-colored dust called regolith, which covers much of the worlds surface area. There are also a great deal of craters, as Mars thin environment isnt strong enough to secure it from meteorites.
For all its Earth-like attributes, Mars is surprisingly barren: it does not have a thick environment, it does not have any rivers or seas, and it does not even have active geology. Its barren, inactive, and boring. Or is it?
This would make Mars the third body in the solar system with active tectonics, after Venus and the Earth– that makes the planet all the more fascinating.
The research study was published in Nature.
