Icelandic Analogs for Volcanic and Fluvial Processes on Mars

Details Icelandic Analogs for Volcanic and Fluvial Processes on Mars Icelandic Analogs for Volcanic and Fluvial Processes on Mars

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufm.p32d0573m&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #P32D-0573

Mathematics

Logic

1821 Floods, 5415 Erosion And Weathering, 5464 Remote Sensing, 5480 Volcanism (8450), 6225 Mars

Scientific paper

Iceland has proven to be an excellent location to study a wide range of Martian geologic analogs. Among these are basaltic volcanism and aqueous flooding--key geologic processes that have shaped the Martian surface and that remain active in Iceland. On both Mars and Iceland, volcanic units are interfingered in space and time with fluvial units. Well-preserved flood lavas in SE Elysium Planitia, Amazonis Planitia, and portions of the Tharsis rise are dominated by a distinctive morphology of plates and ridges, very similar to the "apalhraun" or "rubbly pahoehoe" of Iceland (Keszthelyi and Thordarson, 2000, GSA Abstract 52593). On both Iceland and Mars there are marginal regions of undisrupted inflated pahoehoe, small rootless cones, and long parallel structures in the wake of topographic obstacles. The Icelandic paleoflood channels of Jokulsa a Fjollum, extending from the Vatnajokull ice cap to the north coast, have eroded basaltic plains and provide many insights into morphologies seen on Mars. The manner in which different types of lava erode in a catastrophic flood is well illustrated and sometimes surprising. For example, there are channel floors where the crusts of inflated lavas have been completely stripped off by the floodwater, but then suddenly transitions upstream into a stretch with almost no erosion--even the cm-scale pahoehoe ropes are intact. This implies that significant aqueous floods could have occurred over some well-preserved lava flows on Mars. A streamlined "island" or mesa extending downstream from the volcanic crater Hrossaborg in Iceland appears to be mixture of remobilized older glacial deposits and a debris flow deposit. The debris flow apparently formed by collapse of the western outer crater slopes into the active floodwaters, diverting the flow northward; this process may have occurred on Mars at some of the impact craters eroded by outflow channels.

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