Comments from ASU

Listed below are the comments that the scientist in charge of the MSIP project posted. Review and do what she says!

Cratering question -

This sounds interesting – though the students should keep in mind that these ages would be relative ages not true ages. They should also be careful to consider the fact that there are processes that have affected and changed the martian surface that have had no effect on the lunar surface.


Lava Tubes -

For this one, I would steer them more towards “Does the number and size of lava tubes on Martian volcanoes relate to the possible age of a volcanoes. There is no way they can determine the age of a flow, unless they can differentiate between flows and if a lava tubes is detected on that particular flow. It they looked at the number and size of lava tubes on different volcanoes, almost looking at the distribution of lava tubes on volcanoes, they may hypothesize that the more collapsed lava tubes, the older the volcano. They should look up scientist thoughts on relative ages of volcanoes. For example, the Tharsis volcanoes are thought to be younger than Alba Patera (which is the large structure to the north of Tharsis). Other volcanoes, like Syrtis Major, are less “noticeable” and thought to be quite old. Maybe this group should watch the archive of our volcanoes presentation. That is available at: https://breezemeeting.asu.edu/p59558709/

Channels Question:

For this one, they may want to focus on what characteristics are generally associated with channels formed by water or lava and then use that criteria to find images in whatever area they are looking at, to see if they can make a determination. This group may also want to look at the archived distance learning presentation listed above on volcanoes as there is a discussion about lava textures and lava channels. They may also be interested in the Surface Features on Mars presentation that talks about volcano features as well as water related features. That archive is available at: https://breezemeeting.asu.edu/p50033490/