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Caves on Mars?

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the little-green-cavemen dept.

RockDoctor writes "The BBC is reporting that the photo-surveying of Mars has revealed seven suspected cave entrances in the Arsia Mons volcanic area. This has been hinted at before — long sinuous channels in the same region have been interpreted as collapsed 'lava tube' caves — but the scale of the suggested entrances (sheer drops of 80 to 130m from the surrounding surface) makes my troglodytic hands twitch for my abseiling gear."

7 of 99 comments (clear)

  1. news? by wileyAU · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Is this really news? To be completely honest, it had never occurred to me that there wouldn't be caves on Mars.

    1. Re:news? by onion2k · · Score: 5, Interesting

      It depends on the caves really. Fracture caves or lava tubes would certainly be expected because they're formed by volcanic and tectonic movements. If Mars didn't have that then something very odd would be going on. Solutional cave formations are less of a certainty though. These are the sorts of caves formed by water absorbing CO2 during rainfall, turning to carbonic acid, and dissolving certain sorts of rock. For them to exist you need both water and CO2 obviously, and specific mineral deposits to desolve. Their existence could tell us more about the chemical makeup of the martian surface.

      Plus, caves would be a likely place for microbes to continue to thrive. Caves on Earth of full of life.

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    2. Re:news? by phrostie · · Score: 5, Interesting

      although water formed caves would be exciting from a geological standpoint, i like the lava tubes theory.
      a lava tube would have the possibility of being sealed and an atificial atmosphere created for habitation.
      It's be safer than an inflatable structure on the surface.

    3. Re:news? by ozbird · · Score: 3, Interesting

      a lava tube would have the possibility of being sealed and an atificial atmosphere created for habitation.

      Given that lava tubes appear to be prime habitat for any potential life on Mars, pumping one full of toxic oxygen raises a few ethical issues.

  2. Spacemen become Cavemen by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    FTA:
    The authors say that the possible discovery of caves on the Red Planet is significant.

    The caves may be the only natural structures capable of protecting primitive life forms from micrometeoroids, UV radiation, solar flares and high energy particles that bombard the planet's surface.

    Like maybe Earthlings?

  3. Re:The actual article's URL by ColdWetDog · · Score: 2, Interesting
    Thank you. I wondered why an article on "caves" would not have anything resembling a graphic, especially since they were discovered by photographic mapping. But looking at the article explains it. They look like nondescript bubbles and the theory that they represent a cave like structure comes from the thermal spectrum of the objects. Not much to see here...

    And why are these "caves" all named after women? No, let's not go there....

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  4. Re:Be very carfull... by Tablizer · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Caves can be dangerous [link].

    I almost clicked, and then realized this topic may be a perfect setup phrase for a goatse trick. I don't volunteer to check it.

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