Explosive volcanoes spawned mysterious Mars rock formations

Washington DC: A mysterious rock formation on Mars may have been caused by explosive volcanic eruptions that shot jets of hot ash, rock and gas skyward, a study has found.

The finding, published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, could add to scientists' understanding of Mars's interior and its past potential for habitability,

The Medusae Fossae Formation is a massive, unusual deposit of soft rock near Mars's equator, with undulating hills and abrupt mesas.

Scientists first observed the Medusae Fossae with NASA's Mariner spacecraft in the 1960s but were perplexed as to how it formed.

Researchers suggest that the formation was deposited during explosive volcanic eruptions on the red planet more than 3 billion years ago.

The formation is about one-fifth as large as the continental US and 100 times more massive than the largest explosive volcanic deposit on Earth, making it the largest known explosive volcanic deposit in the solar system, researchers said.

"This is a massive deposit, not only on a Martian scale, but also in terms of the solar system, because we do not know of any other deposit that is like this," said Lujendra Ojha, a planetary scientist at Johns Hopkins University in the

US.

Formation of the Medusae Fossae would have marked a pivotal point in Mars's history, researchers said.