I was excited to see the latest photos from the Mars probe…those hills in the distance look like they might be interesting. Anyway, is there any evidence for plate tectonics on Mars? The movemnt of plates resulted in mountain ranges on earth…is there any evidence that Mars once had plate movement?
Or are the high mountains only volcanic?
Will the next Mars lander be sent near a volcano? Are all of the Martian volcanos dormant?
Wish I could be there! :smack:
Possibly, though activity would’ve stoped several billion years ago. From NASA
It’s also worth noting that NASA has to find a balance between the desire to check out some interesting terrain and the desire not to have their $100 million orbiter fall into a crevasse. Hence the relative boringness of the Mars Rover sites thus far.
A slightly newer paper on Martian geology doesn’t rule out a series of tectonic plates, but says that better maps are required. From this paper
This doesn’t mean that tectonic activity never occurred (see Olympus Mons) but that a series of crustal plates might never have completely developed before the crust thickened too much to allow them.