Tharsis

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Clouds hover over the volcano peaks of the Tharsis region in this color mosaic image. Olympus Mons dominates at upper left. At center are the three Tharsis Montes: Arsia Mons at bottom, Pavonis Mons at center; and Ascraeus Mons at top. Image Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech

The Tharsis region on Mars is an enormous volcanic upland located on Mars' equator, at the western end of Valles Marineris. Its name comes from the bible, where it was the name for the land at western extremity of the known world [1].

It contains the Tharsis Bulge, on which some of the solar system's largest volcanos are located. Olympus Mons formed by a mantle plume over a period of about a hundred million years during the Noachian epoch (between 3.8 and 3.5 billion years ago).

The vast size of the Tharsis Bulge had a great impact on the geology of Mars. Tharsis is surrounded by a ring-shaped topographical depression called the Tharsis trough, and on the opposite side of the planet is a smaller bulge called Arabia Terra which may have formed as a result of the weight of Tharsis. These features were a major influence on the formation of Mars' drainage valleys, most of which formed in the late Noachian. The large quantities of carbon dioxide and water vapor that could have been outgassed by Tharsis magma may have also played a significant role in Mars' wet period; Roger J. Phillips calculated in 2001 that it could have formed a 1.5-bar carbon dioxide atmosphere and a global layer of water that averaged 120 meters thick.

Alba Patera is a unique volcanic feature to the north of the Tharsis region.

[edit] Tharsis in popular culture

The climax of the computer game Myth II: Soulblighter, by Bungie, takes place at a volcano named Tharsis. Halo, another Bungie product, features a destroyer named Tharsis.

The last missions of the computer game Chaser take place in a subterranean complex inside the Tharsis bulge.