Thermal Constraints on Martian Lava Flows: FLOWGO goes to Mars

Details Thermal Constraints on Martian Lava Flows: FLOWGO goes to Mars Thermal Constraints on Martian Lava Flows: FLOWGO goes to Mars

Dec 2001

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2001agufm.p32d0568r&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2001, abstract #P32D-0568

Mathematics

Logic

6225 Mars, 8414 Eruption Mechanisms, 8429 Lava Rheology And Morphology, 8450 Planetary Volcanism (5480)

Scientific paper

We are in the initial stages of efforts to apply the Thermo-Rheological numerical flow model FLOWGO to Martian conditions, with the goal of providing constraints on eruption characteristics. FLOWGO is a self-adapting program that determines all heat loss and gain terms for lava flowing in a channel. When given a starting channel dimension and underlying slope it will determine the eventual distance to which the lava will flow. The main adaptations that need to be made for Martian conditions involve decreasing acceleration due to gravity and changing terms relating to radiative and convective heat loss because of Mars' cold, thin, atmosphere. Both the gravity and atmospheric effects lead to Martian flows going shorter distances compared to Terrestrial flows with the same starting channel dimensions and underlying slopes. However, it is well known that many Martian lava flows, including those of Elysium Mons, our first test case, are much wider and longer than Terrestrial counterparts. Although it has been very difficult to determine channel dimensions in MOLA, MOC and Viking data, using plausible values based on overall flow dimensions ( ~130 km length x ~10 km width) produces volumetric flow rates that vary between 105 and 106 m3/sec for flows ~10 km wide. The variation is due to a range of input channel depths; better constraint on this parameter makes our continued search for fortuitous MOLA tracks ever more important. A number of very large (10s of km wide x 100s of km long x 10s of m thick) lava flows show up in the MOLA DEM north and west of Pavonis Mons. Channel-like depressions can be identified in topographic profiles across these flows but they are relatively narrow and shallow compared to the overall flows. Because we can constrain the overall flow length better for these particular flows we can run FLOWGO iteratively to determine that channel depths were between 8 and 40 m, and produced volumetric flow rates > 106 m3/sec.

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