Question. Which volcano on the Tharsis region of Mars is the youngest?

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2 Question Which volcano on the Tharsis region of Mars is the youngest?

3 Importance We believe that this question is important and interesting because we don t have any evidence of recent tectonic activity on Mars. Therefore, we were interested in which volcano is the youngest.

4 Hypotheses Our main hypotheses, the volcano on the Tharsis Region that is youngest is Pavonis Mons. Our alternative hypotheses, the volcano on the Tharsis Region that is youngest is Olympus Mons.

5 Definitions Volcano-A volcano is an opening, or rupture in a planet s surface or crust, which allows hot magma, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from below the surface. Crater-A basin resulting from the collision of an object with a planetary surface. (Made by meteorites) Citation: class notes

6 Themis image of volcano There is no image I.D. Olympus Mons is the largest volcano on Mars. It is about as large as the state of Arizona. It has four to six visible craters on the top. (not 46, 4 to 6) h#p://marsprogram.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/atlas/ olympus- mons.html

7 THEMIS IMAGE OF CRATER The image I.D. of this crater is V This crater was most likely created by a large meteorite It seems to be about as wide as the several craters on top of Olympus Mons.

8 VOLCANO FORMATION Volcanoes on Earth are created from a weak spot in the crust where molten material from the asthenosphere (mantle) comes to the surface. They are found on plate boundaries that are diverging or in subduction zones around the edges of the oceans. Volcanoes on Mars were formed in a similar fashion as Earth s. Except the one shown below and the rest of the volcanoes on the Tharsis region are a shield volcano and those are found in the middle of the plate. Olympus Mons (left) Mt. Saint Helens (right) Cita9on: class notes

9 Crater Formation Craters on Earth were formed my meteorite impacts. Craters on Mars were also created my meteorite impact. The reason why Mars has so many craters is because Mars doesn t have the same atmosphere as we do, so it isn t protected like Earth is. A crater on Mars (left) Barringer Crater (Right)

10 Science Research The Mariner 9 image of Olympus Mons is one of the first images to show that Mars has large volcanoes. THEMIS image of lava flows. Note the lobate shape of the edges. Volcanic activity, or volcanism, has played a significant role in the geologic evolution of Mars. Scientists have known since the Mariner 9 mission in 1972 that volcanic features cover large portions of the Martian surface. These features include extensive lava flows, vast volcanic plains, and the largest known volcanoes in the Solar System. Martian volcanic features range in age from Noachian (>3.7 billion years) to late Amazonian (< 500 million years), indicating that the planet has been volcanically active throughout its history and probably still is so today. When scientists analyzed the ages and chemical composition of several... Believe it or not, "recent" in geological terms can actually mean "180 million years young.... To the Tharsis region, home to Olympus Mons, the largest volcano in our... come from volcanic regions on Mars? their ages are as young as 180 million...

11 Procedures 1. On JMARS (MSIP) software, type in following coordinates: 244E, Make a 7x14 data table with following labels: Image I.D. #, Latitude, Longitude, preserved craters, Modified craters, Destroyed craters, region. 3. Magnify onto volcanic feature that you will collect data on. 4. Click add new layer. 5. Go to MSIP in first category box. 6. Click on stamps. 7. Click on THEMIS. 8. Click set Lon/Lat to bounds of view. 9. Click okay (blue overlapped boxes should appear). 10. Click on a box (should turn yellow). 11. Right click and click on view THEMIS stamps. 12. Click on web browse (image I.D. #). 13. Find info table (located at the right- hand side). 14. Copy and paste image I.D. #, longitude, and latitude in to data table made earlier. 15. Count number of preserved, modified, and destroyed. 16. Record data in data table. 17. Repeat steps 2-16 for each volcano.

12 Spacecraft and Camera Used Spacecraft- the Odyssey Camera- THEMIS (thermal emission imaging system)

13 Geologic features We ll be focusing on geologic features such as volcanoes and craters. We will study this because our science question asks which volcano in the Tharsis region on Mars is the youngest. We ll use THEMIS images of craters on the volcanoes and see which volcano has the most and the least which will show the age by using the technique of super positioning.

14 Geographic regions We ll be focusing on the Tharsis region of Mars. The Tharsis region holds some of Mars largest volcanoes.

15 Olympus Mons THEMIS Images We used 59 THEMIS images to answer our science question. Ascraeus Mons Pavonis Mons Arsia Mons

16 Column names of data table Image I.D. # Latitude Longitude # of preserved craters # of modified craters # of destroyed craters Region ( all of them will state Tharsis since that is our main focus)

17 Measurements THE ONLY MEASURING WE LL BE DOING IS COUNTING THE NUMBER OF CRATERS ON EACH THEMIS IMAGE. THIS IS THE ONLY WAY OF RESEARCHING OUR QUESTION USING THEMIS IMAGES.

18 Ascraeus Mons Data Table

19 Image ID # La*tude Continued Longitude Preserved Craters Modified Craters Destroyed Craters Region V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis

20 Image ID # La*tude Arsia Mons Data Table Longitude Preserved Craters Modified Craters Destroyed Craters Region V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis

21 Continued Image ID # La*tude Longitude Preserved Craters Modified Craters Destroyed Craters Region V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis

22 Image ID # Olympus Mons Data Table La*tude Longitude Preserved Craters Modified Craters Destroyed Craters Region V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis

23 Image ID # Pavonis Mons data table La*tude Longitude Preserved Craters Modified Craters Destroye d Craters Region V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis V Tharsis

24 Crater Data Graph

25 Mola Map L a t i t u d e Longitude

26 Conclusion (part 1) Our scientific question was: which volcano on the Tharsis region of Mars is the youngest? Our main hypothesis was: the volcano on the Tharsis Region that is youngest is Pavonis Mons. Our alternative hypotheses was: the volcano on the Tharsis Region that is youngest is Olympus Mons

27 Conclusion (part 2) We believe that this question is important and interesting because we don t have any evidence of recent tectonic activity on Mars. Therefore, we were interested in how old the youngest volcano is. The evidence was how many craters were found on each volcano. We found a reasonable amount to support our hypothesis. The possible noise we could have made was that we could have miscounted the amount of craters on each volcano in the Tharsis region and this could lead to incorrect data tables.

28 Conclusion (part 3) Our hypothesis was proven to be wrong by the data that we collected. The volcano on the Tharsis Region that is youngest is Ascraeus Mons, was proved to be supported in our experiment. Ascraeus Mons ended up having 309 craters in all. The volcano that had the largest amount was actually the one that we thought that would be the youngest, Pavonis Mons. Pavonis Mons had 489 craters. We say the volcano that has the least amount of craters would be the youngest because it makes sense that the longer the volcano has been around, the more craters it would have.

29 References h#p://themis.asu.edu/ h#p://marsed.mars.asu.edu/msip- home h#p:// how_volcanoes_work/mars.html h#p:// history- of- volcanism- on- mars

30 End of Presentation, thank you for watching!