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Geothermal Activity on Mars?

Posted by michael on Friday July 25, 2003 @11:49PM from the toast-marshmallows dept.

An anonymous reader writes "This article on the New Scientist site reports that Mars Odyssey has detected warm spots (20-40 degrees warmer irrespective of sunlight, day or night) in the Hellas basin."

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Evidence of ice towers? by AndroidCat · 2003-07-26 00:29 · Score: 5, Interesting

All they've got is some hot-ish spots, and Hoffman is talking about how high the ice towers are in Martian gravity. Perhaps the article skimmed his reasoning, but there seems to be a logical leap there with no proof that there are any ice towers.
Even on Earth, there are a number of places with cold and volcanic vents, but ice towers form in only one place (the most extreme, granted). Obviously the conditions have to be just right. Other than being cold, Antarctica really isn't that much like Mars.
The ice tower story sounds like either Hoffman was either playing to the media, or they were playing him.

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