Investigating Mars: Pavonis Mons

Scaled Image

Image Credit: NASA/JPL/ASU

About this image

This image shows part of the two summit calderas of Pavonis Mons. The surface in the majority of the image is the floor of the larger caldera. The smaller caldera occupies the bottom of the image. In both calderas the floor is predominately flat. The final summit flow would have pooled in the caldera and cooled forming the flat floor.

Pavonis Mons is one of the three aligned Tharsis Volcanoes. The four Tharsis volcanoes are Ascreaus Mons, Pavonis Mons, Arsia Mons, and Olympus Mars. All four are shield type volcanoes. Shield volcanoes are formed by lava flows originating near or at the summit, building up layers upon layers of lava. The Hawaiian islands on Earth are shield volcanoes. The three aligned volcanoes are located along a topographic rise in the Tharsis region. Along this trend there are increased tectonic features and additional lava flows. Pavonis Mons is the smallest of the four volcanoes, rising 14km above the mean Mars surface level with a width of 375km. It has a complex summit caldera, with the smallest caldera deeper than the larger caldera. Like most shield volcanoes the surface has a low profile. In the case of Pavonis Mons the average slope is only 4 degrees.

The Odyssey spacecraft has spent over 15 years in orbit around Mars, circling the planet more than 69000 times. It holds the record for longest working spacecraft at Mars. THEMIS, the IR/VIS camera system, has collected data for the entire mission and provides images covering all seasons and lighting conditions. Over the years many features of interest have received repeated imaging, building up a suite of images covering the entire feature. From the deepest chasma to the tallest volcano, individual dunes inside craters and dune fields that encircle the north pole, channels carved by water and lava, and a variety of other feature, THEMIS has imaged them all. For the next several months the image of the day will focus on the Tharsis volcanoes, the various chasmata of Valles Marineris, and the major dunes fields. We hope you enjoy these images!

Please see the THEMIS Data Citation Note for details on crediting THEMIS images. 

Context

Image ID: 
V17590016 (View data in Mars Image Explorer)
1.13446
247.411
17590
2005-12-01 17:26
Thu, 2017-11-02
VIS
1024 pixels (17 km)
3648 pixels (62 km)
0.017061 km/pixel
0.0171813 km/pixel

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