Scientists may have identified the culprit behind signs of recent volcanic activity on Mars.
Beneath a broad plain called the Elysium Planitia lies a massive 4,000-kilometer-wide Martian mantle convective plume that may be pumping molten magma to the surface.
This could explain the multiple lines of evidence for volcanic Mars.
“Our results demonstrate that the interior of Mars is geodynamically active today, with volcanic activity similar to that of past Hesperian volcanic regions,” say planetary geophysicists Adrien Broquet and Jeffrey Andrews-Hanna of the University of Arizona.
It suggests that the formation of the Tharsis volcanic region to today’s Elysium Plain was driven by a mantle plume. “I wrote.
Mars shows very convincing signs that it is geologically dead, both inside and out.
The relative age of the surface, where no recent volcanic activity or crustal movement can be seen, and the absence of the earth’s magnetic field have been cited as reasons to believe that there is only solid, immobile rock below the core.
Recent observations have overturned the idea that Mars is completely dead. For example, meteorites that reached Earth from Mars had traces of mantle convection 500 million years ago.
Later, satellite images revealed 50,000-year-old volcanic deposits on the surface of Mars in a system of fissures called Cerberus pits.
The Mars Insight lander, which has been monitoring the interior of Mars since November 2018, revealed that large seismic activity consistent with volcanic activity continues.
There were other curious observations. For example, the local gravitational field on the Elysium Plain is unusually strong, suggesting some underground activity.
Broquet and Andrés Hanna decided to collect topographical, gravitational, geological, and seismic data and find a model to match.
According to their analysis, the mantle plume fits that criteria. This is an updraft of hot internal material pushing against the boundary between the core and mantle of a planet, pushing magma upwards and forming crustal hotspots and surface volcanism.
To match observations such as the epicenter of seismic activity detected by InSight, the plume would need to be at least 3,500 km in diameter and 95 to 285 degrees Kelvin hotter than its surroundings.
That is, between 95 degrees Celsius and 285 degrees Celsius and 171 degrees Fahrenheit and 513 degrees Fahrenheit.
This is very similar to the plumes in the Earth’s mantle that drove prehistoric volcanic activity that caused large-scale carvings of the surface, such as the Deccan Traps and the North Atlantic Igneous Field.
“Although Mars is smaller than Earth, the low gravity and high viscosity of the Martian mantle would predict the formation of similarly sized plume heads,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
“From gravity and topography data alone, the center of the best fitting plume head is located precisely at the center of the Cerberus sulcus, where many of the recent volcanoes and Mars earthquakes are located.”
This means Mars will become the third planet with mantle plume activity in the solar system, after Earth and Venus, the researchers said.
This is a result that is meant to be quite interesting for Mars. Rather than spouting lava, volcanoes may be warming the planet’s interior and keeping lakes on the surface from freezing.
This leads to the search for Martian microbes that lurk in lakes like this one and live quietly, unseen by humans.
“This plume activity indicates that Mars today has a geodynamically active interior, not just seismically and volcanically,” write Brocke and Andrews-Hannah.
“The plumes beneath the Elysium Plain also suggest that surface volcanic flows and seismic activity are not isolated events, but are part of a long-lived and actively sustained regional system, suggesting the longevity of subterranean habitable environments and astrobiology.” It shows that it affects the possibilities.”
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