HONG KONG SAR – Media OutReach Newswire – February 20, 2024 – Volcanoes are a common feature on the surfaces of solid planets in the Solar System, resulting from magmatic activity occurring within the planetary crust. On Earth, volcanism is primarily driven by heat and recycling of the Earth’s crust associated with plate tectonics, but Mars lacks plate tectonics and the driver of volcanism is not well understood.
Topographic data is overlaid with infrared image data showing complex tectonic structures and volcanic deposits in the Eridania region of Mars. Warm colors are at a higher altitude. Image credit: NASA/Mars Odyssey/HRSC.
Recent research led by Professor Joseph MICHALSKI, a geologist at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Hong Kong (HKU), has revealed fascinating information about volcanic activity on Mars. It proposes that Mars exhibits much more diverse volcanism than previously thought, due to an early form of crustal recycling called vertical tectonics. The results, recently published in
Natural astronomy, shed light on the ancient crust of Mars and its potential implications for understanding early crustal recycling on Mars and Earth.
Traditionally, Mars is known for having large shield volcanoes similar to those in Hawaii. However, it was not known that Mars also has the various explosive volcanoes that form on Earth due to the recycling of the Earth’s crust.
Recent research by Professor Michalski and his international team uncovers a large number of diverse volcanoes in the ancient crust of Mars. “We have known for decades that Mars has volcanoes, but most of the recognized volcanoes correspond to large basaltic shield volcanoes similar to those that make up Hawaii,” he explains. “In this work, we show that the ancient crust contains many other types of volcanoes, such as lava domes, stratovolcanoes, calderas, and large shields of ash, not lava.” Additionally, most scientists view Mars as a planet composed of basalt, which has low silica content and represents little crustal evolution, but these volcanoes have high silica content, meaning they formed from a complex process of magma evolution previously unknown.
The paper suggests that intense volcanism occurred on ancient Mars, causing the crust to collapse into the mantle, where rocks remelted, giving rise to silica-rich magmas. This tectonic process, called vertical tectonics, is assumed to have occurred on ancient Earth, but rocks from this period (the Archaean, more than 3 billion years ago) are heavily modified by geological activity later, so we cannot see evidence for the existence of this process. this process clearly on this planet. Therefore, exploring other planets like Mars, which has volcanism but no plate tectonics, can help reveal the mysteries of early crustal recycling on the Red Planet and, by analogy, on the early Earth.
Professor Michalski concluded: “Mars contains crucial geological puzzle pieces that help us understand not only this planet, but also Earth. Martian volcanism is much more complex and diverse than previously thought.
“This is an important discovery because it revealed that recycling of the Earth’s crust can occur not only in plate tectonic regimes dominated by horizontal movements, but also in pre-plate tectonic regimes dominated by vertical movements.” This discovery can help geoscientists resolve long-term controversial questions about how and when felsic continents formed on our planet (Earth),” said Professor Guochun ZHAO, Chair of Science of Earth at HKU.
The journal article can be viewed here:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02191-7
About Professor Joseph Michalski
A professor in the Department of Earth Sciences and deputy director of the HKU Space Research Laboratory, he collaborated with colleagues from mainland China and the United States on this research project. He is a researcher at the Hong Kong Research Grants Council and winner of the Tencent Xplorer Prize in 2023. Funding for this work was provided by the RGC Collaborative Research Fund.
For more information on Professor Joseph Michalski’s research, please visit:
http://www.clays.space; Twitter: @JoePlanets
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https://www.scifac.hku.hk/press
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