An inactive volcanic vent on Mars
Click for full image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on October 5, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled by the science team as “Vents and Lava Flows on Flank of Pavonis Mons,” the section to the right shows the picture’s largest vent. The downhill grade is to the south.
In the full photo you can see that this vent sits on top of a flat mound of hardened lava, all of which flowed from the vent in the distant past. The main flow of course went to the south, out the channel and down the flanks of Pavonis Mons, the middle volcano in the line of three just to the west of Mars’ giant Valles Marineris canyon. The caldera peak of Pavonis Mons is about 35 miles away, and sits at a height of 47,000 feet elevation, far higher than Mount Everest but still only the fourth highest Martian volcano.
In the full picture, the entire surface also generally flows south, except for a crack that goes from northeast to southwest, possibly caused when the mountain flank sagged to the south.
The white dot south of Pavonis Mons marks this vent’s location. The black dots mark the location of the many pits found in the region surrounding these shield volcanoes.
I call this vent inactive, instead of extinct, because we have no idea if it might someday go live again, even though it is likely a billion years or more since lava actually flowed out. Though at present there is no evidence from orbital images of any recent activity on these giant Martian volcanoes, with the most recent activity millions of years ago on the northwest flanks of OIympus Mons, we really know very little about the conditions on the surface, close-up and in detail. There could still be some minor venting, as well as a magma chamber below ground.
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Click for full image.
Cool image time! The picture to the right, rotated, cropped, and reduced to post here, was taken on October 5, 2022 by the high resolution camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Labeled by the science team as “Vents and Lava Flows on Flank of Pavonis Mons,” the section to the right shows the picture’s largest vent. The downhill grade is to the south.
In the full photo you can see that this vent sits on top of a flat mound of hardened lava, all of which flowed from the vent in the distant past. The main flow of course went to the south, out the channel and down the flanks of Pavonis Mons, the middle volcano in the line of three just to the west of Mars’ giant Valles Marineris canyon. The caldera peak of Pavonis Mons is about 35 miles away, and sits at a height of 47,000 feet elevation, far higher than Mount Everest but still only the fourth highest Martian volcano.
In the full picture, the entire surface also generally flows south, except for a crack that goes from northeast to southwest, possibly caused when the mountain flank sagged to the south.
The white dot south of Pavonis Mons marks this vent’s location. The black dots mark the location of the many pits found in the region surrounding these shield volcanoes.
I call this vent inactive, instead of extinct, because we have no idea if it might someday go live again, even though it is likely a billion years or more since lava actually flowed out. Though at present there is no evidence from orbital images of any recent activity on these giant Martian volcanoes, with the most recent activity millions of years ago on the northwest flanks of OIympus Mons, we really know very little about the conditions on the surface, close-up and in detail. There could still be some minor venting, as well as a magma chamber below ground.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
VolcanoCafe, very good website, did a post on volcanism on Mars.
https://www.volcanocafe.org/martian-chronicles-the-living-plume/
What is with the odd, striated terrain — it’s everywhere — that fills the image to the north of the vent, grading into the more granular texture surrounding and to the south of it? Indeed, the vent and the volcanic rille to the north are about the only features in this frame that look “normal” in an earthly / lunar context.
As Robert keeps observing, Mars is a very strange place, but what might have generated these landforms?