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Mars Volcanic History - Windows to the Universe
This is an image of some Martian volcanoes.
Click on image for full size
Image from: NASA

Related links:

Did Earth ever have a huge continent like Mars?

The History of Martian Volcanoes

During its earliest history, Mars was hit with many asteroid-like boulders. The impacts of these boulders caused Mars to become warm enough for continents to drift across the surface just as they do on Earth to this day.

What is now the highlands of Mars may have once been a huge continent which froze in place, in the south, when the crust became too thick to move.

After the crust became too thick to move, a warm bubble of material, rose from the deep interior of Mars and created the Tharsis Bulge and the volcanoes. The volcanoes poured out a new surface over the lowlands of Mars.

After this however, all volcanic activity on Mars stopped.


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Windows to the Universe, a project of the National Earth Science Teachers Association, is sponsored in part is sponsored in part through grants from federal agencies (NASA and NOAA), and partnerships with affiliated organizations, including the American Geophysical Union, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Earth System Information Partnership, the American Meteorological Society, the National Center for Science Education, and TERC. The American Geophysical Union and the American Geosciences Institute are Windows to the Universe Founding Partners. NESTA welcomes new Institutional Affiliates in support of our ongoing programs, as well as collaborations on new projects. Contact NESTA for more information. NASA ESIP NCSE HHMI AGU AGI AMS NOAA