Investigating the role of small vent volcanism during the development of Tharsis Province, Mars

Abstract:

Clusters of tens to hundreds of small volcanic vents have recently been recognized as a major component of Tharsis Province volcanism. These volcanic fields are formed from distributed-style, possibly monogenetic, volcanism and are composed of low sloped edifices with diameters of tens of kilometers and heights of tens to hundreds of meters. We report a new catalog of these small volcanic vents, now available through the USGS Astrogeology Science Center. This catalog was created with the use of gridded topographic data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) and images from the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) and the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC).

We are now investigating isolated clusters of distributed volcanism in Tharsis with this dataset. We hypothesize that these clusters are formed from significant magmatic events that played a large role in the development of Tharsis. Currently, the catalog contains 1075 unique volcanic vents in the Tharsis Province. With the catalog, potentially isolated volcano clusters are identified with vent density estimation. Vent intensity for clusters is found to be 1 vent per 1000 sq km or less. Crater retention rates for one such cluster, Syria Planum, indicates that these distributed volcanic systems might continue as long as 700 Ma, or that monogenetic volcanic systems overprint older systems. Using a modified basal outlining algorithm with MOLA gridded data, shield volumes are found to be between 1-20 cubic km.

Current results show distributed-style volcanism occuring in Tharsis orders of magnitude more dispersed than analogous volcano clusers on Earth, while individual edifices are found to be an order of magnitude larger than volcanoes in Earth clusters. Proof of concept results are reported for three identified clusters: Arsia Mons Caldera, Syria Planum, and Southern Pavonis Mons.