Wet Martian Volcano?
(From the May/June 2009 issue of StarDate magazine)
Ancient sediments beneath mountain could trap liquid water
The largest volcano on Mars may sit atop sediments that contain layers of liquid water, according to a study by two researchers at Rice University.
The base of Olympus Mons is more than 350 miles wide.
Olympus Mons is about 15 miles high, but its base is spread over an area as big as Missouri, so its slope is gentle. When Patrick McGovern and Julia Morgan simulated the volcano's formation, they found that it most likely rests atop beds of clay that were deposited at the bottom of an ancient ocean. As molten rock bubbled up from beneath the Martian surface, it spread out easily along the relatively slick clay, forming a tall but wide mountain.
Clays could still contain water trapped when the ocean retreated several billion years ago, the researchers say. If microscopic life was trapped inside the water layers, heat from the volcano could have sustained it through the eons. — Damond Benningfield
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