Evidence Builds for Old Under-Ice Volcanoes on Mars
This graphic illustrates where Mars mineral-mapping from orbit has detected a few minerals -- sulfates (blue) and iron oxides (pink) -- that can indicate where a volcano erupted beneath an ice sheet.
These mountains are in a region called Sisyphi Montes. In this graphic, the base image shows a portion of the region about 130 miles (230 kilometers) across, centered at 17.73 degrees east longitude, 63.46 degrees south latitude. Red outlines indicate possible subglacial volcanic structures. CRISM data are presented in the overlay box at upper right, with an indication of the ground area covered by this CRISM observation. The color key at upper left shows how the spectrometer data correspond to the presence of sulfates and iron oxide minerals, which are characteristic of subglacial volcanism sites on Earth.
Evidence Builds for Old Under-Ice Volcanoes on Mars
This graphic illustrates where Mars mineral-mapping from orbit has detected a few minerals -- sulfates (blue) and iron oxides (pink) -- that can indicate where a volcano erupted beneath an ice sheet.
These mountains are in a region called Sisyphi Montes. In this graphic, the base image shows a portion of the region about 130 miles (230 kilometers) across, centered at 17.73 degrees east longitude, 63.46 degrees south latitude. Red outlines indicate possible subglacial volcanic structures. CRISM data are presented in the overlay box at upper right, with an indication of the ground area covered by this CRISM observation. The color key at upper left shows how the spectrometer data correspond to the presence of sulfates and iron oxide minerals, which are characteristic of subglacial volcanism sites on Earth.