The long lava flows of Elysium Planita, Mars

Physics

Scientific paper

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Planetology: Solid Surface Planets

Scientific paper

Viking orbiter images are used to study the distribution and morphology of 59 lava flows in the Elysium Planitia region of Mars. Average widths for these flows range from 3 to 16 km, and many of the flows exceed 100 km in length. The aspect ratio (flow length to average width) is highly variable (>40:1 to <5:1), all flows that erupted <200 km from the summit are short (<70 km long), and the 11 longest flows all have vents >294 km from the summit of Elysium Mons. An unusual attribute of five flows is their segmented nature, with up to 13 individual segments on a single flow, which each have a surface area from 25 to 250 km2. Photoclinometry is used to derive an average thickness of 40-60 m for these flows, indicating that individual flow volumes range from 17.7 to 68.1 km3. Plausible values for the effusion rate (101-104m3s-1) suggest that individual eruptions could have lasted for a few months to several decades and could have injected between 1.36 and 2.04×1012kg of water vapor into the atmosphere, assuming a 1 wt % water content for the parental magma. A total volume for all 59 flows is estimated to be 817-1226 km3, which would have released ~2.04-3.01×1013kg of water vapor into the atmosphere or ~0.2% of the amount previously calculated [Plescia, 1993] as the amount released from the Cerberus flows in SE Elysium Planitia.

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