Final

At first, when you glance at my location through pictures or see it through a super high tech telescope (luck you if you can) it doesn't seem like much. What truly makes this location unique and sets it apart from others is its sheer size. 16 miles above surrounding plains and 374 miles across is not a small location people… Thats enormous! Since this is my last blog, I want to emphasize this. Its sticks up out of the planets atmosphere. Thats not to say that its sticking out into space. Although its not, we can safely say thats its pretty close. A better visual idea is to think about airplanes on earth, they fly at approximately 32,000-37,000 feet up in the sky, the mountain (if my math is correct) stands at 88,176 feet tall. Thats not even half the size of this mountain. It's so tall that at different heights you will experience different atmospheric pressures.

The reason its impressive is because of how long it takes to create a geographical  location so enormous. Our lifetime would be a grain of sand in the scale of its creation process. In the big scheme of things olympus mons old (from a human standpoint) because it has taken billions of years to form but its also relatively young in terms of the solar system because specific areas of the mountain are only a couple of million years old. These specific areas are believed to house rock glaciers. This dust/ice deposits are above the base of the shield volcano. This region of the mountain is believed to be four million years old. Now, ladies and gentleman, it may still be an active volcano therefore, it has the potential to erupt. So be careful when traveling.

Furthermore, as time takes its course this location will change. If we fast forward thousands or even millions of years it will look different. If we assume that no extraterrestrial life forms alter the plant we will have one possible outcome if not, we will have two. The first is based on time and pressure. Over the course of 10,000 years, Olympus Mons will look practically the same only with a slight build up of a tiny layer of dust/ice. If we jump to 1,000,000 years in the future we will have 100 times the buildup of dust/ice and the hot spot that once built the mountain will be slightly cooler. Finally, if we fast forward 100,000,000 we will have 10,000 times the built of dust/ice since the first jump and a drastic change in temperature of the hot spot. If we have an eruption then everything changes. The second example would be a result of extraterrestrial lifeforms altering the atmosphere and planet for their colonization purposes. That my friends would be a different story. Farewell.

 

Previously, I spoke of Olympus Mons in terms of size and creation. But for this unit I need to cover climate. In order to do that for my location we would have to consider the climate of the entire planet of mars. Now, even though mars is 11 percent smaller than earth and further away from the sun there are similarities like the polar ice caps, seasonal changes, and weather patterns. When it comes to temperature Mars is much colder. I am sorry but if you plan on visiting mars jackets and ski pants won't do! You'll need a special suit... According to space.com the average temperatures on Mars are about  minus 80 degree  Ferinheight (minus 60 degrees Celsius ). The range of temperatures however, can range from a cozy minus 70 degrees Ferinheight (20 degrees Celsius) on the equator   to a not so cozy minus 195 degrees Ferinheight (minus 125 Celsius) in the pole caps of the planet.

   

Another thing to consider is the atmosphere, its roughly 100 times thinner than that of Earths but is still thick enough to support weather, clouds and winds. Clouds on mars  are pretty interesting, according to redorbit.org, when looked at for the first time they can very easily be mistaken for the high altitude wisps similar to cirrus clouds on our planet. Since scientists have not sampled martian clouds directly, the exact conditions to create such beautiful collections of ice crystals and droplets cannot be 100% percent concluded. Given what they know about the atmosphere they most likely consist of carbon dioxide and water based crystals.

Now Olympus Mons, has a diverse collection of altitude levels thus temperatures and pressures will change. For example if you were standing on top of the volcano you would actually be sticking out of Mar's atmosphere. Pretty crazy... and pretty tall... Fun fact it snows on mars! The snowflakes however  are made of carbon dioxide not H2O.

Blog Post Two

Forming Olympus Mons

Yes we get it, Olympus Mons is massive. However, I did not mention just how big it actually is. Towering all the other volcanos in the Tharsis Montes region near the equator it stands at 16.7 miles (26.87 kilometers) and stretches 374 miles (601.8 kilometers) across (which is about the size of Arizona!). In other words,  that would be 88,176 feet tall and 1,974,720 feet wide. Take Mount. Everest, for example it stands at 29,029 feet, compare both and that means that Olympus is roughly three time bigger. Thats ridiculous... An interesting fact about the mountain is that if you were to stand on the edge of the caldera you wouldn't be able to notice the base beyond the horizon because it wraps around the planet. Mind blowing I know...

Now that we understand how big it is we can cover how it was formed. First of all it important to note that that Olympus Mons is a shield volcano. This means that instead of shooting out violently from the top, lava fluid slowly flows down the side of the mountain onto the surface, spreads out and as a result cools into a broad, low angled slope.  Although it is has taken a very very long time to form, certain regions of the mountain are only a couple of million years old. So why is it so big? According to space.com, scientists believe that it is because of the lack of tectonic plate movement, low surface gravity, high eruption rates, and a concentration of hot spots. For instance, take the Hawaiian islands, tectonic plate movements have prevented the volcanos from building up steady lava in one hot spot. Instead, the plate moves and creates a small collection of islands above that hot spot each time it erupts. 

In relation to what we are learning in class, mars appears to be the only planet other than earth to have plate tectonics in our solar system. Unlike earths, according to discovery news, mars only has two plates but there is a common belief that becuase its core is cooler and its curst is thick there is almost no active movement.  Luckily, my location has to do with volcanic activity (which we covered a little in class).
Olympus Mons, at the present time according to satellite images is not an active volcano. It does happen to be the largest volcano in the solar system! Compared to earth, the volcanos on mars are dramatically bigger and depending on the region they can be 10 to 100 times bigger. According to NASA, the lava flows on the surface of mars are observed to be much larger, which is a result of higher eruption rates and lower surface gravity.

Hello everyone,

My name is Michael Diaz, I am a student in Professor Allen's class and for my geographical location I choose Olympus Mons on planet Mars. You can say its a bit out of reach but we can still study it! The reason I chose this landscape is because if I ever got the chance to go to mars my first thought would climb it and cross it off the bucket list. Its just a matter of time ladies and gentleman.