Mars may show signs of plate tectonics
AUG 13, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.026249
Talking Points Memo : An Yin, a geologist from the University of California, Los Angeles, has proposed that Mars exhibits areas of localized plate-tectonic activity. His conclusions are based on new images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. Earth is the only planet known to have plate tectonicsâmdash;the shifting and collision of large segments of the planet’s crust. An earlier theory that Mars experienced plate tectonics was abandoned because, rather than being formed over an extended period of time like Earth’s plate tectonics are, the Martian landscape features had been formed at about the same time.
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
