Plate tectonics is not something most people would associate with Mars. In fact, the planet’s dead core is one of the primary reasons for its famous lack of a magnetic field. And since active planetary cores are one of the primary driving factors of plate tectonics, it seems obvious why that general conception holds.
However, Mars has some features that we think of as corresponding with plate tectonics—volcanoes. A new paper from researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) looks at how different types of plate tectonics could have formed different types of volcanoes on the surface of Mars.
Typically, when you think of volcanoes on Mars, you think of massive shield volcanoes like Olympus Mons, similar to those seen in some locations on Earth, such as Hawai’i. These form when repeated eruptions deposit layers of lava for millions of years. Those eruptions aren’t impacted by how any underlying plates move underneath them. But they do create a different underlying landscape than elsewhere on the planet.
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