Study Claims Recent Volcanic Activity on Mars Sat. Once thought dead, Mars spewed floods of lava big enough to bury Canada in recent geologic time, with many eruptions occurring during the past 10 million to 100 million years, and others perhaps within the last 3 million years. Read More on the Subject Imagine a flood of lava covering an area the size of Canada. Then put that on Mars.
Additional evidence suggests volcanic activity is recent or ongoing onMars.
They analyzed photographs taken by NASA s Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, counting craters to estimate the dates of lava flows on the vast Elysium Plains that straddle the Martian equator. Younger flows generally have fewer craters than older ones. These are the youngest flows found so far on Mars. He said the youngest flows are part of a Canada-sized area of relatively young, overlapping flows that spewed from fissures onto the southern Elysium Plains and part of the nearby Amazonis plains. This older lava flow on Mars' Elysium Plains is more eroded and heavily cratered than geologically recent flows.