Did Mars Tilt On Its Axis Due To Volcanoes? Massive Seismic Activities Responsible For Shaping Martian Terrain, Indicates Study

Mars may have tilted on its axis owing to super-massive volcanoes, indicated a new study. Significant seismic activity may have caused the noticeable slant in its rotation.

Volcanic eruptions of gargantuan proportions are being held responsible for not just reshaping Mars, but the massive quantity of lava that these volcanoes spewed out have displaced the red planet’s outer layers, indicated a new study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday. The study suggests the original north and south poles moved significantly due to extensive seismic activity. The volcanoes may have influenced the topography of Mars so much that its geographical features altered substantially.

The unexplainable and unexpected location of dry river beds and underground reservoirs of water ice, as well as other Martian mysteries apart from the tilt in the axis, can be attributed to the ancient volcanoes on Mars, said lead researcher Sylvain Bouley who is a geomorphologist at Université Paris-Sud.

“If a similar shift happened on Earth, Paris would be in the polar circle We’d see northern lights in France, and wine grapes would be grown in Sudan.”

Mars’ original north and south poles, in other words, are no longer where they once were, reports Discovery. The monster volcano erupted on the Red Planet some 3.5 billion years ago. Before the super-massive eruption, its poles were in completely different locations and so were its rivers and ice sheets. However, the volcanic upheaval, which researchers feel lasted about two million years, caused the relatively thin crust to buckle and twist.

The volcanic activity tilted the surface of Mars by 20 to 25 degrees, suggests the study. The geologically shaping event on Mars that hints at such mayhem is called Tharsis dome. Essentially a plateau today, the Tharsis dome is more than 5,000 square kilometers (2,000 square miles) wide and 12 kilometers (7.5 miles) long. While these may not seem like large dimensions, considering the fact that Mars is roughly half the size of Earth, the Tharsis dome is enormous, said Bouley.

“The Tharsis dome is enormous, especially in relation to the size of Mars. It’s an aberration.”

Tharsis is home to the largest volcanoes in our solar system, and because of their mass, they were able to spew out so much lava that the outer layers of Mars rotated around its core, reported CNN. The dome formed about 3.7 billion years ago. The volcanic activity continued to dump material on the Martian surface, eventually creating a plateau that weighed a billion tons. The mass, about one-seventieth the mass of Earth’s moon, caused a deep rift between the mantle and crust. It appears the Tharsis dome now rests at the equator, having displaced the poles from their position.

Researchers essentially picked up from a previous research published in 2010 that suggested were the Tharsis dome removed from Mars, the planet would shift by its axis, reported ZME Science.

This substantial shift of the poles fundamentally altered the topography of Mars and profoundly altered its geographical features. The hypothesis easily solves many of the mysteries of the red planet. For quite some time, scientists have been puzzled about the locations of frozen underground reservoirs of water ice. Logically, these reservoirs were supposed to be located at the poles. Moreover, once flowing rivers, which caused riverbeds, have been located at seemingly arbitrary positions. The theory allows scientists to explain why their locations seem absurd.

“Scientists couldn’t figure out why the rivers” — dry riverbeds today — were where they are. The positioning seemed arbitrary. But if you take into account the shift in the surface, they all line up on the same tropical band.”

Interestingly, there are quite a few mysteries that need to be solved, continued Bouley.

“There are still a lot of unanswered questions. Did the tilt cause the magnetic fields to shut down? Did it contribute to the disappearance of Mars’s atmosphere, or cause the rivers to stop flowing? These are things we don’t know yet.”

[Photo by JPL/NASA]