Tag Archives: dating

Elysium’s eruptive history

Posted on November 1, 2011 by rburnham

Elysium is Mars’ second-largest volcanic province after Tharsis. A new study by Thomas Platz and Gregory Michael (Freie Universität Berlin) published in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (October 30, 2011) counts craters on its volcanos and the main lava flows … Continue reading →

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How often does Mars get whacked?

Posted on June 30, 2011 by rburnham

Or — to pose this question more usefully — what’s the rate of crater-making impacts on Mars as compared to, say, the Moon? Why the Moon? Because it’s the one extraterrestrial body for which scientists have both a long visible … Continue reading →

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How to date a volcano

Posted on May 16, 2011 by rburnham

Without rock samples to analyze in a laboratory, how can you tell the age of a Martian volcano? A team led by Stuart Robbins (University of Colorado) used high-resolution images to count craters in the calderas (summit collapse pits) of … Continue reading →

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