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UCLA Scientist Discovers Plate Tectonics On Mars
Reader SternisheFan links to a press release at UCLA, and excerpts from it another bit of Mars news: "For years, many scientists had thought that plate tectonics existed nowhere in our solar system but on Earth. Now, a UCLA scientist has discovered that the geological phenomenon, which involves the movement of huge crustal plates beneath a planet's surface, also exists on Mars. 'Mars is at a primitive stage of plate tectonics. It gives us a glimpse of how the early Earth may have looked and may help us understand how plate tectonics began on Earth,' said An Yin, a UCLA professor of Earth and space sciences and the sole author of the new research."
...for the followup papers by other scientists examining his findings before I make a conclusion. I have a friend who actually is a planetary geologist and focuses most of his attention on Mars, and I haven't heard any of this from him.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
I always found it odd that Mars' southern hemisphere would be so much higher than the northern one. This discovery means it might be simply a supercontinent that will be, in spite of its size, a transient[*] feature.
I'd like to hop on a time machine, go forward 200 years and read up a book on the geology of Mars. I wonder if they'll name previous continents (assuming they can be determined) by a system that uses names from famous Mars-related stories. The first bunch of continents named after features in the John Carter of Mars stories, another bunch taken straight from Bradbury's Martian Chronicles, et cetera.
[*] In a geological time scale, of course.
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
One would expect this with Martian vulcanism.
While the existence of tectonics on Mars is interesting in its own right, the really fascinating question is whether it is still continuing today. Yin seems to jump to the conclusion that it does without much data to back it up. I would like to see some measurements examining Martian tectonic movements. It shouldn't be that hard, we can already do that with centimeter precision here on Earth. If Mars turns out to be tectonically active, that would mean it still has a hot liquid mantle and it's not the cold dead planet we tought it was.
That was my thoughts as well. I don't believe it is at a "primitive" stage, but a very advanced stage. This is what the earth will become, not what it was.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
The reason why we have precise measurements is because we have 30 satellites in extremely precise orbits that are carefully measured and corrected, which broadcast GPS signals all day long. There is really no practical way of getting a system like that in place now or in the foreseeable future on Mars.
Forgive me, IANAPG but didnt Mars cease to be geologically active long ago.
That's what we thought, which makes this finding surprising.
Also, if earth is the only planet with active tectonics why is Venus literally covered with active volcanoes and an atmosphere thousands of times denser than earth?
It's literally covered with active volcanoes, rather than having them occur largely along narrow zones near fault lines, precisely because it appears to lack plate tectonics, which would cause it to vent its internal heat more like Earth does rather than it's peculiar Venusian way...
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Eh, I think the idea was that Mars plate tectonics was frozen at an early, "primitive" stage, not that it is currently experiencing said stage.
The most likely scenarios is Venus got steamed over by some large SOB.
Seriously, look at its parameters,
Sidereal rotation period -243.018 5 day (Retrograde)
Axial tilt 177.3 degrees
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus
and for Mars,
Sidereal rotation period 24.622 9 h
Axial tilt 25.19degrees
So, Mars is like Earth. Kind of "normal". The day takes about same amount of time and tilt is similar. Mars is kind of like a twin of Earth. And since there is evidence for water on Mars in the past (back when it had a magnetic field), tectonic plates are kind of expected.
Of course *now*, that tectonic activity may have stopped. There is no evidence for recent tectonic activity on Mars. Mars lost its water and atmosphere to space, mainly due to collapsed magnetic field. The planet is just too small to carry on the "dynamo" going for 4,000,000,000 years. 2,000,000,000 years ago, Mars could be with liquid water and maybe even breathable atmosphere.
As to Venus, well, its axis tilt is fucked. It is spinning the "wrong way" (opposite of other planets). Something big rolled over Venus long time ago, bit enough to make it spin the other way. Maybe it never recovered from that event. And since Venus now has no tectonic activity (observed via a Magellan)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magellan_probe
it can't remove its CO2 from atmosphere, and well, that is causing problems. Like being the hottest place in the solar system. Current understand of tectonic plates require water to "push" one planet beneath another. On Venus, there is evidence that internal pressure is causing some parts to go up and some down, but there is insufficient height differential to force one plate under another and no water to fill in the holes and move the "low" areas lower. So you end up with no tectonic plates.
As to an example of another planet that got reamed by something large, it would be Uranus. It has axis tilt of about 90 degrees
Why would anybody that is a legitimate scientist think that?
Because in serious science, being wrong is not a crime. In fact, the first person to state "we have no evidence for X, so we must assume it does not exist" often get's the credit for setting some student or other off to prove him wrong. Just remember, the true crime is being "not even wrong". Try to be wrong at least once a day; then you might learn something. The only condition is that you have to realise that you were wrong.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
I've been working on a time machine. I've got it to the stage where it can make small jumps into the future. Right now it can go one minute ahead. You just get in, sit in the chair, and press the button. It's not (yet) instantaneous, though. It takes about 60 seconds to complete the trip. I just need some more funding. Look for my kickstarter project soon. If it passes the $100K level I'll put in a more comfortable chair, which would open the way to longer journeys.