Giant Lava Spirals Wreck Mars Ice Valley Theory

Martian Lava Spirals

Mars scientists are frantically regrouping after grad student Andrew Ryan with the help of the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter photographed what appeared to be huge spirals carved into the Lava flows in many of valleys on Mars. Scientists have had a long-running debate over whether water or volcanoes formed part of the red planet's landscape.

Andrew Ryan, A researcher at Arizona State University, may have been the first to spot this new form of lava flow — shaped like coils of rope — near the equator of Mars. They are new just to Mars however. Similar coiled lava structures have been observed on the Big Island of Hawaii and in submarine lava flows near the Galapagos Rift on the floor of the Pacific Ocean.

Ryan discovered the coiled lava structures in the Athabasca Valles nears Mars' equator - then continued his study by doing analysis on more than 100 high-resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

Ryan states that the spirals range in size from 16 to 100 feet wide and could not have been formed by ice-or water-related processes.

Thanks to long time listener Dan for the article

Ottawa Citizen article          Science Daily

Ancient Martian Channels Formed by Lava Not Water?

From The Daily Galaxy is an article stating that the Martian structures resembling ancient riverbeds may have been made by huge fast moving rivers of lava instead of the more commonly accepted water theory.

David Leverington, an associate professor in the Department of Geosciences at Texas Tech, employing high-resolution photographs, has determined that the Martian channels only superficially resemble channels on Earth that formed by floods. However, unlike Earth’s water-formed channels, the Martian structures lack the delta-like, sediment-laden deltas that exsist at the mouths of Earth's major tributaries but instead terminate in vast plains composed of volcanic basalt.

This is supported by abundant evidence of past eruptions of lava at the heads of these large systems, very similar to what is seen on the moon and on Venus.

The image is the Kasei Valles, a circum-Chryse outflow channel, which flowed into the Chryse Planitia. Credit: NASA/Texas Tech.

Complete Daily Galaxy article here