Tharsis

The Tharsis region on Mars is an enormous volcanic upland located on Mars' equator, at the western end of Valles Marineris.

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It contains the Tharsis Bulge, on which some of the solar system's largest volcanos are located. Olympus Mons is at top left. At center, diagonally from top to bottom are Ascraeus Mons, Pavonis Mons and Arsia Mons (collectively known as Tharsis Montes). Tharsis Bulge rises up to 10 kilometers above its surroundings and covers 30 million square kilometers. It is thought to have been formed by a mantle plume over a period of about a hundred million years during the Noachian epoch.

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The vast size of the Tharsis Bulge had a great impact on the geology of Mars. Tharsis is surrounded by a ring-shaped topographical depression called the Tharsis trough, and on the opposite side of the planet is a smaller bulge called Arabia Terra which may have formed as a result of the weight of Tharsis. These features were a major influence on the formation of Mars' drainage valleys, most of which formed in the late Noachian. The large quantities of carbon dioxide and water vapor that could have been outgassed by Tharsis magma may have also played a significant role in Mars' wet period; Roger J. Phillips calculated in 2001 that it could have formed a 1.5-bar carbon dioxide atmosphere and a global layer of water that averaged 120 meters thick.

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Alba Patera is a unique volcanic feature to the north of the Tharsis region.

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Mars: Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in our solar system. It is named after Mars, the god of war in Roman mythology (the counterpart to Ares in Greek mythology), because of its red color as viewed in the night sky. This feature also earned it the name "The Red Planet." Mars has two moons (Phobos a...

Valles Marineris: Valles Marineris (Latin for Mariner Valley, named after the Mariner 9 Mars orbiter of 1971-72 which discovered it.) is a vast canyon system that runs along the Martian equator just east of the Tharsis region. At 4,500 km long, 200 km wide and 11 km deep, the Valles Marineris rift system is ten time...

Volcano: :This article is about volcanoes. For the action movie, see Volcano (movie). For other meanings of the word eruption, see eruption (disambiguation)...