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Planetary Formation

20 December 2015 · Published

Mars volcanoes active recently

WordPress backup · Astronomy.com / Nature 2004 clipping

Original wording. Not rewritten as Paper I. Withdrawn claims stay visible so the record is not erased.

High-resolution images from the Mars Express spacecraft reveal the planet’s largest volcanoes may have seen activity — volcanic and glacial — in the past few million years.

Lava erupted on the flanks of Olympus Mons perhaps only 2.4 million years ago, says a team who examined HRSC images of five Tharsis volcanoes. “These volcanoes are potentially still active today,” says Gerhard Neukum. The report appeared in Nature, 23–30 December 2004.

Olympus Mons caldera ages were read from about 100 to 200 million years. Arsia Mons caldera floor ~130 million years. Glacial-like deposits around Olympus dated 4 million years in places; some debris tongues “cannot be reliably dated.”

Mark Robinson cautioned that the 2-million-year surface might be a landslide or that cratering rates on Mars are poorly known. The clipping was kept because late fire on Mars is a stage note for a compact world still stirring.