Other
Scientific paper
Dec 2001
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufm.p32c0563l&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #P32C-0563
Other
5480 Volcanism (8450), 8450 Planetary Volcanism (5480)
Scientific paper
Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) images show conspicuous dark mantles on top of mesas inside the Valles Marineris and dark sand sheets on their floors. The dark materials overlie all other deposits in the Valles Marineris, including landslides in places, and are therefore relatively young. Generally the dark materials have been interpreted as wind deposits from mafic sources. The question is what were these sources, and where were they located? Were the dark materials winnowed by the wind from adjacent lava plateaus and became trapped in the troughs, or were they derived locally from sites within the troughs? Some of the dark materials no doubt are atmospheric fall out, and some may have been derived from older dark layers in the trough walls and interior deposits. However much of the dark material appears to have been derived from local, late volcanic vents. A thorough search of MOC images covering all Valles Marineris chasmata revealed numerous possible vents associated with low dark mesas, dark cover on high mesas, dark materials lining the base of trough walls (probable fault scarps), and some sand sheets. The structures are rimmed or rimless dark circular depressions, elongate depressions and nested sets of circular rims associated with dike-like linear ridges, mounds topped by holes, short flow lobes, and irregular depressions associated with terrain so dark that most of it is undersaturated in the images. The possible vents occur mostly in some sectors of west Candor, west Tithonium, Melas, Juventae, and Capri/Eos Chasmata. As flow structures are less common than vents, the dark materials appear to come from pyroclastic eruptions inside the Valles Marineris. The materials tend to be transported along low areas and reworked into dunes, suggesting sand-sized grains. Perhaps some of the dark materials are composed of glass beads, as are dark mantles on the Moon. On Mars beads may have formed similarily when mafic materials erupted explosively into its thin, cold atmosphere.
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