An ancient shield volcano Olympus Mons rises to a height of 21.9 kilometers on Mars. It is the highest mountain and also the highest volcano in the Solar System. In addition to its impressive height, it also impresses with its area, which is almost the same as the total area of Poland.
According to today’s estimates, Olympus Mons was formed in the period referred to as hesperian, i.e. sometime between 3.7 and 3 billion years ago. It was a period of fading waves of cosmic bombardment and the beginning of massive effusion volcanism, when mainly basic (low viscosity) lava was spilled into the surrounding area. Lava lakes formed and slowly solidified, forming large lava shields.
Martian history (in millions of years):
From what we know, Mars had a significantly denser atmosphere, an overall warmer climate, and a large amount of surface water at that time. The possibility that there was a large ocean on the surface of the red planet that covered most of the northern hemisphere is also not excluded. Olympus Mons could thus have been a large volcanic island from which lava poured directly into the ocean.
The ocean is lava
Anthony Hildenbrandfrom the French research agency CNRS and the University of Paris-Saclay and colleagues explored the slopes of the Olympus Mons volcano, as well as ancient coastlines in the area Tharsis Mountains, where there are other large shield volcanoes. They compared the observed structures to Earth’s volcanic islands, where lava meets seawater. Their research published professional journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters.
Researchers believe that the upper edge of the six-kilometer escarpment that surrounds the Olympus Mons volcano was probably formed at the beginning of the Hesperian period, when it was formed by lava flowing into the Martian ocean. Similar geological features are visible on the slopes of another shield volcano Alba Monswhich is located 1,800 kilometers northwest of Olympus Mons.
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The research findings support the idea that a large ocean in the northern hemisphere of Mars has existed for a long time. Scientists are also convinced that sometime during the Hesperian there was a massive uplift of the terrain in the area of the Olympus Mons volcano, thanks to which the coast at that time reached a height of six kilometers, which certainly does not correspond to the level of the ocean at that time.
2023-08-01 09:36:10
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