Identifying Evidence for Explosive Volcanism on Mars Through Geomorphologic and Thermophysical Observations

An overview of explosive volcanism on Mars

“…They are associated with lava plains and friable, layered deposits often bearing signs of the presence of sulphates. Based on the morphological and morphometrical characteristics, it was suggested by Michalski and Bleacher (2013) that these paterae may be the martian analogues of terrestrial ‗supervolcanoes', although it should be noted that these interpretations are not universally accepted (Garcia, 2018). However, if such an interpretation is correct, these volcanic centres may be the source for the large quantity of fine-grained, layered deposits that are exposed throughout Arabia Terra (Malin and Edgett, 2000;Edgett and Malin, 2002;Hynek et al, 2003), including the characteristic units formed from tephra deposits, allophane and imogolite, identified at Mawrth Vallis (Bishop and Rampe, 2016).…”