Regional Similarity of Leveed Lava Flows on the Mars Plains
The dynamics of lava flow movement are controlled by the fluid interior. Crust, solids, and nondeformable material can only retard the advance or spreading of a lava flow. Figure 1 shows a typical large, channelized lava flow found on the Mars plains. It has been suggested in [I] that such large leveed flows on the Mars plains were emplaced by a balance between the formation and shedding of crust as the flow advances. For the prototypical flow north of Pavonis Mons (Fig. I), such a balance leads to a flow morphology that approximately self-replicates at all locations along the flow path [2,3]. Moreover, most quantitative characteristics of emplacement (e.g., viscosity, volumetric flow rate) of the prototype flow at Pavonis Mons resembled those of large channelized lava flows on Earth. The exception was the relatively long, sustained supply of lava, on the order of a year as opposed to hours or days for terrestrial analogs.