Identification of candidate martian maars in Arena Colles and Nephentes/Amenthes with extension to maars as a proxy for past ground water/ice depths

Abstract

Maar craters represent the top of a volcanic construct produced by subsurface explosive interactions between ground water/ice and rising magma. Recent comprehensive studies of terrestrial maars have established the commonality of complex maar crater geometries composed of overlapping circular components with a single near continuous outer rim. These distinctive geometries, and the availability of high spatial resolution visible imagery on Mars, provide an opportunity to identify and evaluate candidate maars on Mars. This study evaluated 49 closed depressions in Arena Colles and Nephentes/Amenthes based on their proximity to pitted cones of proposed volcanic origin. Across the two regions, 13 candidate maars were recognized for their similarity to terrestrial maars in absence of any exclusionary characteristics related to other formation processes such as butterfly ejecta around binary craters. The recognition of maars on Mars would provide additional proxies for the presence and range of depths for ground water and ice at the time of eruption. The diameter of the multiple overlapping circular components in maar craters can be used to provide first order estimates of the depths of the underlying diatreme as a proxy for depth of explosions and thus presence of water in the subsurface. Estimates based on the circular components of the 13 candidate maars recognized here indicate that water/ice depths at the time of formation would be between 0.6 and 4 km.