|
|
Volcanoes are among the most imposing and geologically interesting features on Mars. Nearly 60 percent of the planet’s surface is covered by volcanic rocks dating from the Early Noachian to Late Amazonian Epochs (Tanaka and others, 1988). This map of the volcano Apollinaris Patera and surrounding area is one of a series of large-scale (1:500,000) geologic maps initiated by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration to investigate areas of particular scientific interest. The areas selected for mapping contain candidate landing sites for future sample-return missions to Mars (fig. 1).
|
The geology of the Thaumasia region (fig. 1, sheet 3) includes a wide array of rock materials, depositional and erosional landforms, and tectonic structures. The region is dominated by the Thaumasia plateau, which includes central high lava plains ringed by highly deformed highlands; the plateau may comprise the ancestral center of Tharsis tectonism (Frey, 1979; Plescia and Saunders, 1982). The extensive structural deformation of the map region, which is without parallel on Mars in both complexity and diversity, occurred largely throughout the Noachian and Hesperian periods (Tanaka and Davis, 1988; Scott and Dohm, 1990a). The deformation produced small and large extensional and contractional structures (fig. 2,...
|
|
