Giant Martian Volcano-Tectonic Megamorphic Structures of the Central Type and Their Probable Small Terrestrial Analogues

Abstract

The article shows that neither on the ground nor on the bottom of the seas there are no today topographical volcano-tectonical megamorphic structures similar in size, composition and origin to those giant morphic structures with volume of their building up rocks of 1–2.4 × 106 km3 revealed on Mars (patera Alba, Mount Olympus, Arsia, Askrian, Pavlina, Elysium). Fragments and traces of such formations have not been unambiguously revealed and described in geological strata of both Meso-Cenozoic and Paleozoic. The same applies to the older epochs of the Earth. The components of the relief of the Martian megamorphic structures are roughly similar in their form to very strongly enlarged copies of long-known and repeatedly described terrestrial volcanic structures – large shield, shield-like, and substantially lava volcanoes, lava domes, as well as calderas of different types. Although the structures of the listed types of volcanoes are not morphologically identical to their Martian analogues, they are smaller in height of their structures, and their slopes are steeper. Calderas are many times shallower. The age of Martian volcanic forms is much older. A unique formation is the megamorphic structure of Mount Olympus, which was formed in a large glacial cover, and in the formation of which the glacial processes also took a significant part. It is attributed to megamorphic structures of the giant tyuya type. Its small analogues are different in age and parameters glacial-subarctic tuyas, which suffered glaciation in the volcanic regions of the Earth.