gazillion of year ago , Mercury was pass away in impossible amounts of lava . About six percent of the entire satellite was covered in the lava of a individual volcanic vortex . Not bad considering we were n’t even certain Mercury had volcanoes .
Technically speaking , all that lava did n’t number from volcano , at least not the kind we ’re conversant with here on Earth . or else , lava simply started rain cats and dogs out of cracks in Mercury ’s open somewhere between 3.5 and 4 billion years ago . The lava spread out throughout the north frigid region , regorge out enough lava to cover 60 % of the United States , or enough to immerse Texas four mile deep in lava . ( And no , that is n’t a proposal . ) It is n’t just airfoil area we ’re blab out about – the lava was a mile cryptic in place .
uranologist have wondered about the comportment of volcanic activity on Mercury for 10 , but it ’s only now with the arrival of the MESSENGER spacecraft in arena around the planet that we can screw for indisputable . The evidence for vent on Mercury is subtle at best – there are n’t any big lot - like vent on the planet , and the lava - cover regions do n’t attend all that different from other areas , unlike the significant blue volcano - mold highlands on the Moon .
Indeed , the massive outpouring of lava create hundreds of square miles of almost completely smooth plains , making it difficult to find any readable physical features , let alone those that would show preceding volcanic activity . To find substantiation , Brown University researchers had to await 125 miles outside the volcanic zona to discover a fissure vent , which is just like the cracks that eruct out lava all those billions of eld ago – only this volcano is n’t immerse underneath thousands of feet of preserved lava .
Lead researcher James Head says this is the first support grounds of volcanic activity on Mercury , but this undivided event was so gigantic that it ’s pretty much unacceptable that it was an isolated event . Now the hope is that MESSENGER can find even more evidence of Mercury ’s newfound disorderly past .
ViaScience . Image good manners of James Head research group , Brown University .
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