![]() With the crust thinning there, magma below the surface is able to work its way through cracks and weaknesses in the thin crust, creating many volcanoes there. While plate tectonics helped sheer Saudi Arabia off of the African continent, creating the Red Sea in the process, the continental crust continues to stretch thin in this area. In East Africa, spreading and shifting of plates has created the modern day Middle East there while also creating an area ripe with volcanic activity. In Hawaii, a hot spot in the middle of the Pacific plate allows magma to reach the surface in a weakness in the plate there. While most volcanoes occur around borders of moving plates, they can also occur in the middle of plates too. Caused by plate tectonics, lithospheric plates under and around the Pacific Ocean move, collide, and/or are destroyed, creating the seismic activity the Ring of Fire is famous for. The Ring of Fire is a region around the rim of the Pacific Ocean where many volcanic eruptions and earthquakes occur. Most of the volcanoes in the world are located around the “Ring of Fire” around the Pacific Rim. Geological Survey (USGS), there are about 1,500 potentially active volcanoes worldwide, with about 500 of the 1,500 erupting in historical times. There are currently 26 active volcanoes erupting around the world today.Īccording to the U.S. However, many erupting volcanoes are located just north and east of Australia, keeping volcanologists busy even in that part of the world. Volcanoes have roared to life around the globe, with every continent but Australia seeing an active eruption today. "The ages of the eruption and the impact are indistinguishable, which raises the possibility, however speculative, that the impact actually triggered the volcanic eruption," says Pranabendu Moitra, co-author of the study.There are 26 volcanoes erupting around the world today while dots reflect recent notable earthquakes, the red X’s show where a volcano is erupting today. The team says that it’s possible that the two are connected. Interestingly, this potentially youngest volcanic eruption happens to be located just a few miles from a large impact crater that may also be the youngest on Mars. It is possible that these sorts of deposits were more common but have been eroded or buried.” "This eruption could have spewed ash as high as 6 miles (9.7 km) into Mars' atmosphere. "This feature overlies the surrounding lava flows and appears to be a relatively fresh and thin deposit of ash and rock, representing a different style of eruption than previously identified pyroclastic features," says David Horvath, lead author of the study. It doesn’t seem to be the result of common lava flow eruptions, but a more explosive event driven by expanding gases, called a pyroclastic eruption. ![]() Judging by its layers relative to its surroundings, as well as the number of small craters within it, the team calculated its age to be around 53,000 years. ![]() ![]() ![]() The team says it doesn’t look like anything else seen in the area, or anywhere else on Mars. Spotted from orbit in a region called the Elysium Planitia, the feature is a dark deposit that measures 8 miles (12.9 km) wide, and surrounds a large fissure 20 miles (32.2 km) long. Generally though, it’s thought that Martian volcanism mostly occurred between about 3 and 4 billion years ago, and had all but died down in the last few million years – the odd, very faint marsquake notwithstanding.īut now, scientists have discovered a scar that appears to be far more recent. Its surface is dotted with what may be the remains of gigantic, extinct supervolcanoes, and evidence even suggests one of these erupted non-stop for 2 billion years. Mars still bears the scars of its volcanic past. But now, orbiters have spotted a large volcanic deposit that appears to be relatively fresh – only about 53,000 years old – which may lend weight to the idea that the Red Planet was recently, or still is, habitable for subsurface microbes. While there’s evidence of volcanic activity in Mars’ ancient past, it was presumed to have been quiet for millions of years. ![]()
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