Martian Meteorite Confirms Mars Had active Volcanoes 2-Billion-Years Ago, Oldest Volcano Of Solar System

Scientists have found a meteorite from Africa that denotes the evidence of volcanoes on Mars. Two billion years ago from today Mars was the home of active volcanoes. A Recent study on the meteorite confirms that Mars has the oldest volcano in the solar system.

A joint research team from the University of Houston and the Purdue University started researching on the meteorite sample which was found from Algeria, Africa in 2012. Researchers labeled the specimen as Northwest Africa(NWA) 7635 and it was almost 6.9 ounces (~196 grams) in weight. Scientists wrote about their findings in the journal of Science Advances.

University of Houston’s geology professor Tom Lapen, the lead researcher of this study, said in a statement,“the findings offer new clues to how the planet evolved and insight into the history of volcanic activity on Mars”. At the previous studies, scientists found that the Mars accommodates the largest Volcano in the solar system, but the new findings are quite different.

According to the report by Mail Online, The largest volcano on Mars is Olympus Mons that is nearly 17 miles high. While the largest volcano of Earth Mauna Kea is just one-third of this (6.25miles). even the largest mountain of Earth [Mount Everest] is small enough to fit inside the volcano.

Just like the Hawaiian Islands, Shield Volcanoes and lava plains of Mars were formed by the long distance lava flowing. Researchers came to a decision that about one million years ago a large sized cosmic object banged into mars and hit volcano. During this impact, volcanic rocks were thrown into space. Later, when those rocky fragments came into the Earth’s gravity then those rocks rained into the planet as a meteorite.

Researchers found total 11 martian meteorites. All of them including the Algerian specimen have a similar chemical structure that indicates they came from the same source and those volcanic rocks are called Shergottites.

Most interesting thing about NWA 7635 is, it is something different from those other 10 meteorites. Although, they contains same chemical components but those meteorites are about 327 million to 600 million years old. While the NWA 7635 is more than 2.4 billion years old. This thing suggests it was ejected from one of the oldest volcanoes of Solar System.