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BookmarkScienceDaily (Jan. 13, 2009) — A synthesis of deformation patterns within and around the Thaumasia Plateau, Mars, points to a new interpretation for regional deformation and the origin of Valles Marineris and associated outflow channels.
Montgomery et al. state that geothermal heating and topographic loading of extensive buried deposits of salts and/or mixtures of salts, ice, and basaltic debris would allow for weak detachments and large-scale gravity spreading. They propose that the generally linear chasmata of Valles Marineris reflect extension, collapse, and excavation along fractures radial to Tharsis, either forming or reactivated as part of one lateral margin of the Thaumasia gravity-spreading system.
The other, dextral, lateral margin is a massive splay of extensional faults forming the Claritas Fossae, which resembles a trailing extensional imbricate fan. Topographic observations and previous structural analyses reveal evidence for a failed volcanic plume below Syria Planum that could have provided both thermal energy and topographic potential for initiating regional deformation, either intrusively through inflation or extrusively through lava flow and/or ash fall emplacement.
Higher heat flow during Noachian time, or geothermal heating due to burial by Tharsis-derived volcanics, would have contributed to flow of salt deposits, as well as formation of groundwater from melting ice and dewatering of hydrous salts. Their hypothesis provides a unifying framework to explain perplexing relationships between the rise of the Tharsis volcanic province, deformation of the Thaumasia Plateau, and the formation of Valles Marineris and associated outflow channels.
This research was published in the January-February issue of the GSA Bulletin.
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Adapted from materials provided by Geological Society of America.
Note: If no author is given, the source is cited instead.
