Caves on Mars?

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."

Comments

news?

[wileyAU]

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

Re:news?

[onion2k]

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.

Re:news?

[phrostie]

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.