Are There Plate Tectonics on Mars? 5 th Grade Class of 2013 John Read Middle School Redding, CT 06896

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1 Are There Plate Tectonics on Mars? 5 th Grade Class of 2013 John Read Middle School Redding, CT Introduction: Are there plate tectonics on Mars? Could plate tectonics explain the formation of Valles Marineris and the colossal volcanoes in the Tharsis region? These are interesting questions because for years it was believed that Earth was the only planet with tectonic plates. Recently An Lin from UCLA recently published a paper claiming there are two plates on Mars. He claimed he found evidence by studying Valles Marineris that it was formed by transform boundaries. Hypothesis: Our hypothesis was that Valles Marineris was a rift that created the volcanoes in the Tharsis region. Another hypothesis is if there are tectonic plate features in on Mars, then it could show that there are tectonic plates but there would need to be further research. Background: How do tectonics work and change the earth? The Tectonic plates are parts of the crust that always are moving but they move very slowly. They are on the lithosphere. They can make landforms such as mountains, volcanoes, and canyons

2 The Tharsis region has several volcanoes. On Earth, we associate that with plate tectonics. Where plates are moving apart magma rises through the gap between the separating plates and forms rift volcanoes. On Earth we can find that in East Africa. Subduction volcanoes are formed when one plate is forced under one another. It pushes the magma and end up forming volcanoes. We see this on earth when we see the Andes Mountains. Some volcanoes not thought to be formed by plate movement are hot spot volcanoes. They are formed from magma that forces its way to the surface from deep within the mantle. Volcanoes in the Hawaiian Islands are thought to be formed this way. This is the current theory for how the volcanoes on Mars are formed.

3 Tectonic plates can affect the area around them. Transform boundaries are one-way that tectonic plates move this occurs when two tectonic plates rub past each other. This often forms faults, earthquakes or volcanoes. A transform fault forms when two plates meet at a border and slide next to each other. They end on either side with faults, ridges, or subduction zones. On Earth we see this when we look at the San Andreas Fault. If we agreed that the Valles Marinaris was a transform fault, needed to see if there was evidence of bordering subduction or convergent boundaries on either side. Methods and Data: MOLA Map We used JMARS to try to collect evidence of plate tectonics in the Tharsis region and on either side of Valles Marinaris. We were trying to see if Valles Marinaris was formed by a transform fault and could we find evidence of bordering faults. We looked at picture from stamps in Themis, but they were so close up we could not get a good idea related to plate tectonics. We used the color Mola map to study the variation of elevation to help determine evidence of the effects of plates moving. We used the chart tool to help with this, but the method we used to collect the data was not consistent. We created a Mola plot map, so we could see the big picture. We tried to plot it using Excel, but we could not get it to work, so we added in the plots manually. We tried looking at stamps, which helped us see evidence of tectonics, but not convincing evidence of plate tectonics.

4 Discussion: At Valles Marinaris it is possible that there is a transform boundary. But if this were true then there would have to be trench as a boundary to the tectonic plates which there is not. Or, if Valles Marinaris were the trench to different transform boundaries then the volcanoes would have to be parallel to Valles Marinaris. Conclusions: Are there plate tectonics on Mars? No, there might be tectonic plates but we would need to gather more evidence to answer this question. We did not see evidence supporting that Valles Marineris was a rift that created the volcanoes in the Tharsis region. If there are tectonic plate features on Mars, then it could show that there are tectonic plates but there would need to be further research. Some future work that could be done to expand our research project would be to see how Olympus Mons and the three volcanoes near it were formed. We would like to acknowledge the NASA scientists, and Alexis grandmother for inspiring us to study Mars. Works Cited: "Appalachian Highlands Province." Appalachian Highlands Province. N.p., 10 Oct Web. < Dir. Scott Nowicki. YouTube. N.p., 23 Oct Web. < Kraft, M. D., and P. R. Christensen. "TECTONIC FORMATION OF MOUNT SHARP, GALE CRATER, MARS." Proc. of 44th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. N.p., Web. < NASA/JPL/ASU. "THEMIS Art #45." Mars Odyssey Mission THEMIS. Mars Space Flight Facility, Arizona State University, n.d. Web. < N.d. Photograph. Web. < _boundary.jp g>.

5 "Plate Tectonics." Plate Tectonics. N.p., n.d. Web. < /PLATES2_p rint.ht ml>. Tutorial 1: Introduction to JMARS. JMARS. Mars Space Flight Facility, Arizona State University, n.d. Web. < "Volcanic Hot Spots - Geology For Kids - By KidsGeo.com." Volcanic Hot Spots - Geology For Kids - By KidsGeo.com. N.p., n.d. Web. 10 June 2013.