Ancient volcanoes erupted under Martian ice sheets, study finds

NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter revealed more of the Red Planet’s secrets, having found evidence that volcanic eruptions took place beneath an ice sheet located far from currently frozen regions on Mars several billion years ago, the agency announced on Tuesday.

Using the orbiter’s mineral-mapping spectrometer, Purdue University scientist Sheridan Ackiss and colleagues analyzed the surface composition in an area of Mars called “Sisyphi Montes” and found that the unusual, flat-topped mountains located there were strikingly similar to Earth-based volcanoes that had erupted beneath a layer of frozen water.

The discovery suggests there had once been an extensive ice sheet on Mars and the environmental conditions may have contained the perfect combination of moisture and heat for flowing water, allowing microbial organisms to survive and thrive there.

“Rocks tell stories. Studying the rocks can show how the volcano formed or how it was changed over time. I wanted to learn what story the rocks on these volcanoes were telling,” Ackiss said in a statement, adding that the discovery of minerals like zeolites, sulfates, and clays are the same as those found following subglacial volcanic activity here on Earth.

Mineral composition said to be similar to that found on Earth

Located in the southern portion of Mars, far from any frozen areas currently found on the planet, Sisyphi Montes is mountain range located in the Sisyphi Planum region. The range has a diameter of 124 miles (200 km) and was named in 1985.

More to the point, some of the flat-topped peaks in the region were found to contain the various minerals that have been linked to subglacial volcanism on Earth. The orbiter’s Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) detected those zeolites, clays and sulfates by imaging the region at a resolution of about 60 feet (18 meters) per pixel.

The mountain range extends from approximately 55 degrees to 75 degrees south latitude, NASA said, and CRISM’s high-resolution observations have revealed that some sites have shapes and compositions that are consistent with volcanic eruptions beneath ice sheets located roughly 1,000 miles (1,600 km) away from the planet’s current south pole.

Earlier this week, researchers discovered that boiling water may have carved the dark streaks on the slopes of the Red Planet, suggesting that Mars may still contain liquid H2O, but that it could also have less liquid water than previously believed.

Based on the amount of water thought to be needed to create these streaks, as well as the fact that said water would be short-lived, the authors of the study believe that it would make the current Mars a less-than-ideal environment for microbes.

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Image credit: NASA

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