Mud volcanoes on Mars?
Mud volcanoes on Mars?
For years there have been discussions about whether some volcanoes on Mars are not magma-fed, but mud volcanoes. On Earth, there are approximately 1800 of these volcanoes. Dozens of comparatively small hills with central craters have been discovered in the Martian region of Chryse Planitia, into which numerous wide, now dry channels terminate. These are distributed in this lowland plain (left of centre in this contrast-enhanced Mars Express HRSC false-colour image). The flat, almost pancake- or cowpat-like, bright areas on the right of the image may also have been formed by mud flows. Laboratory experiments, in which DLR Mars geologist Ernst Hauber was involved, support the theory that mud volcanism is also possible in the cold conditions found on Mars, with its thin atmosphere. However, the flow behaviour is completely different from that on Earth due to the much lower atmospheric pressure and temperatures.
