Quantification of Surface Roughness of Lava Flows on Mars

• Main Author: Rodriguez Sanchez-Vahamonde, Carolina
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Published: Scholarship@Western 2019
• Subjects: Mars; lava flows; surface roughness; planetary volcanism; volcanism on Mars; Earth Sciences; Geology; Other Earth Sciences; Tectonics and Structure; The Sun and the Solar System; Volcanology; Iceland
• Online Access: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/6754; https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/context/etd/article/9176/viewcontent/CRodriguez_MScThesis.pdf

Volcanism has played a significant role throughout Mars’ geologic history. Extensive lava flows are widely spread across Mars’ equatorial region, shaping the surface in a very distinct way. In radar images (at the decimeter scale), these flows are bright, which is a typical characteristic of extremely rough, blocky lavas flows seen on Earth. Although the source of the extreme roughness of Martian lava flows is unknown, their surface roughness parameters can be constrained to 1) gain information about Mars’ interior processes, 2) find appropriate analogues on other planetary bodies, and 3) ideally infer the emplacement style of such lavas. Here, we utilized very detailed high-resolution images of Mars to measure the surface roughness parameters of Martian lava flows at a scale never before examined on the Martian surface (meter scale). Our results determined that at the meter scale, Martian lava flows are smoother than blocky flows seen on Earth, somewhat similar to pahoehoe and rubbly flows seen in Hawaii and Iceland (which are smoother at the decimeter scale), and similar to young lunar lava flows (also smoother at the decimeter scale). The differences observed in the surface roughness of Martian lava flows at the decimeter and meter scales compared to analogue lava flows on Earth and the Moon might be the result of: 1) the differences in the emplacement style of the lava flows, 2) the differences in post-emplacement modification processes on the surface of the lava flows, and/or 3) the limitations of the technique used to characterize the lava flows.