Rams Record

Volcano on Mars?!

Rams Record Editor

Allison

    Nasa researchers have learned that a volcano on Mars went extinct the same time as dinosaurs. Arsia Mons is the southernmost volcano in a group of three Martian volcanoes known as Tharsis Montes. By using a new computer model scientists figured out when the volcanos stopped erupting lava. According to this device these volcanos stopped erupting 50 million years ago. This was the same time the Paleogene extinction event occurred.

    "We estimate that the peak activity for the volcanic field at the summit of Arsia Mons probably occurred approximately 150 million years ago — the late Jurassic period on Earth — and then died out around the same time as Earth’s dinosaurs. It’s possible, though, that the last volcanic vent or two might have been active in the past 50 million years, which is very recent in geological terms." said Jacob Richardson, a postdoctoral researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. He and his research team discovered 29 volcanic vents on Mars, which are located in a crater shaped depression on top of the volcanos. A caldera on Mars is big enough to hold all of the water in Lake Huron. A caldera is when volcanos collapse under their own weight. Who knows maybe Mars is more like Earth than we think.     

                                                          

Resources:

http://www.space.com/36138-mars-volcano-died-with-dinosaurs.html