SCIENCE HIGHLIGHT

Geodynamics Branch, Code 921

September 2002

Sakimoto, Idaho State Colleagues Search for "Mars on Earth"

As part of a collaboration with the Idaho Space Grant on a NASA EPSCoR grant, Susan Sakimoto has been collaborating with scientists at Idaho State, especially Professor Scott Hughes , on topographic and petrologic studies of volcanic plains. This compliments her NASA-funded work on Mars plains volcanism and is a real-life "comparative planetology" study that has direct relevance to solid Earth natural hazards. Hughes has done extensive work on the composition of young (few 1000 to 10,000 year old) volcanics. This summer the two investigators and their field colleagues spent two weeks in the Eastern Snake River Plains obtaining detailed topographic surveys of small shield volcanoes, inflated lava flows, and hydro-volcanic cones. Two main issues are being studied: how the detailed topography will correlate with the known petrologic diversity of volcanic features, and how topographic features compare with martian volcanic features thought to have similar origins.

Preliminary results suggest that the more evolved (silica- rich) small shield volcanoes have steeper summit areas. This may indicate that similar steep-sided shields on Mars are more evolved in composition than previously thought. These results will be presented in two complimentary talks at the Fall Geological Society of America Meeting in Denver, Colorado, in a topical session on Terrestrial Approaches to Extraterrestrial Problems and Vice Versa.

Contact: Susan Sakimoto, GSFC, Code 921 (sakimoto@geodynamics.gsfc.nasa.gov)

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Responsible NASA official: Dr. Herbert Frey