When meteorites pummelled a young Mars, they may have obliterated enough of its crust to allow the planet's mantle to well up and trigger volcano-like activity across the red planet.
A team led by Christopher Edwards of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena looked at 2,800 ancient Martian craters with flat floors, thought to be made of sediment layers. But data from orbiting satellites showed that materials in the crater were too rocky for this to be true. Other observations, such as the materials' mineral composition, were also incompatible with sediment.
Instead, the authors propose, meteorite impacts that fractured the planet's crust provided paths for molten rock to flow up and flood the crater floors. At a time when Earth's early oceans supported life, the surface of Mars may have been marked by magma.
From: Nature Publishing Group
Posted At: Wednesday, 30 October 2013 11:00 AM
Posted To: Nature - Issue - nature.com science feeds
Conversation: Planetary science: Why Martian craters are flat
Subject: Planetary science: Why Martian craters are flat
Planetary science: Why Martian craters are flat
Nature 502, 7473 (2013). doi:10.1038/502597b<http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/502597b>
When meteorites pummelled a young Mars, they may have obliterated enough of its crust to allow the planet's mantle to well up and trigger volcano-like activity across the red planet.A team led by Christopher Edwards of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena looked
View article...<http://feeds.nature.com/~r/nature/rss/current/~3/29JQecHVhSc/502597b>
No comments:
Post a Comment