Beauchamp, Nathan
(2018)
NUMERICAL MODELING OF THE DAEDALIA PLANUM LAVA FLOWS, MARS.
Master's Thesis, University of Pittsburgh.
(Unpublished)
Abstract
Mars has been a target of scientific research for decades as its surface records a varied geologic history including the largest shield volcanoes in the solar system (Rossi and van Gasselt, 2010). The evidence of volcanism, from the shield volcanoes and the lava flows that extend for hundreds of kilometers, garnered the interest of many scientists to determine why the volcanism on the planet is at a scale much larger than on Earth (Zimbelman, 1998). Many previous studies compared terrestrial and Martian flows using empirical relationships to determine values for parameters such as eruption rate and viscosity (Zimbelman, 1998; Hiesinger et al., 2007). These terrestrial based empirical relationships have not been verified as being applicable to planetary flows (Crisp & Baloga, 1990). This study seeks to examine this issue by duplicating the flows using numerical modeling with the FLOWGO thermorheologic model of Harris and Rowland (2001) and comparing the generated eruption rate and viscosity values.
For modeling of this study, the majority of model parameters were based on data taken from the terrestrial Piton de la Fournaise volcano except for values directly measured from the Mars flows such as flow dimensions and path slope. Dimensions of flows were measured from Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter’s Context Camera (CTX) images of the study region in Daedalia Planum, Mars. Slope and flow thickness required the use of elevation data from the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) instrument. Using these parameters, a set of three different models were generated that reproduced the flows in the Daedalia Planum within 10% of their measured length. The results of this study were comparable to the eruption rates and viscosity values of previous studies. This study has shown that Martian lava flows can be modeled using terrestrial flow parameter values with results comparable to prior solely empirical studies.
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Details
| Item Type: |
University of Pittsburgh ETD
|
| Status: |
Unpublished |
| Creators/Authors: |
|
| ETD Committee: |
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| Date: |
29 January 2018 |
| Date Type: |
Publication |
| Defense Date: |
28 November 2017 |
| Approval Date: |
29 January 2018 |
| Submission Date: |
8 December 2017 |
| Access Restriction: |
No restriction; Release the ETD for access worldwide immediately. |
| Number of Pages: |
103 |
| Institution: |
University of Pittsburgh |
| Schools and Programs: |
Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences > Geology and Planetary Science |
| Degree: |
MS - Master of Science |
| Thesis Type: |
Master's Thesis |
| Refereed: |
Yes |
| Uncontrolled Keywords: |
planetary geology |
| Date Deposited: |
29 Jan 2018 18:43 |
| Last Modified: |
29 Jan 2018 18:43 |
| URI: |
http://d-scholarship.pitt.edu/id/eprint/33602 |
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