Monster volcano gave Mars extreme makeover: study

phys.org ^ | March 2, 2016 by | Laurence Coustal, Marlowe Hood

[BenLurkin]

A volcano on Mars half the size of France spewed so much lava 3.5 billion years ago that the weight displaced the Red Planet's outer layers, according to a study released Wednesday.

Mars' original north and south poles, in other words, are no longer where they once were.

The findings explain the unexpected location of dry river beds and underground reservoirs of water ice, as well as other Martian mysteries that have long perplexed scientists, the lead researcher told AFP.

"If a similar shift happened on Earth, Paris would be in the Polar Circle," said Sylvain Bouley, a geomorphologist at Universite Paris-Sud.

"We'd see Northern Lights in France, and wine grapes would be grown in Sudan."

The volcanic upheaval, which lasted a couple of hundred million years, tilted the surface of Mars 20 to 25 degrees, according to the study.

The lava flow created a plateau called the Tharsis dome more than 5,000 square kilometres (2,000 square miles) wide and 12 km (7.5 mi) thick on a planet half the diameter of Earth.

"The Tharsis dome is enormous, especially in relation to the size of Mars. It's an aberration," Bouley said.

This outcropping—upward of a billion billion tonnes in weight—was so huge it caused Mars' top two layers, the crust and the mantle, to swivel around, like the skin and flesh of a peach shifting in relation to its pit.

[DannyTN]

I hate when a monster volcano give me a makeover.

[Darteaus94025]

Couldn’t we have a small one erupt for just 15 years in DC?

[Pearls Before Swine]

Did it tip over?

[onedoug]

We’ve got to get some geologists up there...eventually.

[C19fan]

The volcanic upheaval, which lasted a couple of hundred million years,

Mars has no plate tectonics so the volcanic activity occurred on the same spot for that length of time. That is why Olympus Mons on Mars is so huge. Imagine the hot spot the has created the Hawaiian island chain stayed in one place.

[BenLurkin]

Like Guam

[Pearls Before Swine]

Like Guam

Precisely.

[Riley]

About 2.5 times the height of Mt. Everest. If that were on Earth, I’m not sure how you could put a man on top of it. Maybe parachute someone in a space suit to plant a flag and take a few quick pictures and then downhill ski for his life before his oxygen ran out.

[SunkenCiv]

• Did A Giant Impact Create The Two Faces Of Mars? [Yes. Next!]
• Mars Crater May Actually Be Ancient Supervolcano [No. Next!]
• Red Planet's Ancient Equator Located [the real story]
• New Theory: Catastrophe Created Mars' Moons
• sidebar: Red planet's hue due to meteors, not water

  "There is something of a paradox about Mars," agrees Joshua Bandfield of Arizona State University in Tempe. His team recently showed that the planet has no large deposits of carbonates, which should have formed if giant pools of water had persisted on the surface. Bandfield suggests that liquid water must have occasionally burst out of the ground, carving channels and gullies, but that it quickly froze again in the frigid Martian climate.

Thanks BenLurkin. But, y'know, my ass.

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[rdl6989]

Insert Hank Johnson reply here.

[earglasses]

The late astrophysicist Dr. Thomas VanFlandern had a more compelling though less conventional theory. He called it the “Exploded Planet Hypothesis”, or “EPH” — for more information, see http://metaresearch.org/solar%20system/cydonia/mrb_cydonia/new-evidence.asp

[Fred Nerks]

[BenLurkin]

Great chart. Thanks!

[SunkenCiv]

TVF had a consistent model for dealing with certain data, and a possible, still hypothetical mechanism -- but no actual evidence that planets have gone missing, including during the past 10 million years. He also was his own worst enemy, this garbage -- PROOF THAT THE CYDONIA FACE ON MARS IS ARTIFICIAL.

[SunkenCiv]

I'm glad to see no one had to ask why Venus shows 177°. :')

[Fred Nerks]

...so what about its retrograde revolution, and its ion tail from Earth?

Venus Tail

In 1997, Europe’s Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) Satellite showed that the tail stretched some 45,000,000 kilometres into space, more than 600 times as far as anyone had realized and almost far enough to “tickle” the earth when the two planets are in line with the sun. “In this sense”, scientists write, “Venus can be likened to a comet, which has an induced magnetotail of similar origin.”

[SunkenCiv]

:’)