Olympus Mons is the largest volcano in the solar system Ceraunius Tholus, one of its smaller volcanoes, nears the height of Earth's Mount Everest.Ģ43 Ida and its moon Dactyl. The presence of many huge volcanoes on Mars shows that large areas were very hot in the past. This leads to the possibility of finding useful minerals for a future human population on Mars." Molten rock on Mars This showed that Mars can have a magma evolution.
Research carried out at Louisiana State University found different types of volcanic materials around volcanoes in Elysium Mons. Cracks occur both in the frozen magma mass and in the surrounding rocks, so ore is deposited in any kind of the rock that happens to be nearby, but the ore minerals first had to be concentrated by way of a molten mass of magma. Cracks often form when a mass of magma cools because magma contracts and hardens when it cools. Nearly all the mines in the northern Black Hills of South Dakota came to be because of hot water deposits of minerals. Some of the world's most significant deposits of gold, silver, lead, mercury, zinc, and tungsten started out this way. Deposits created by means of these hot solutions are called hydrothermal deposits. Ore minerals, including the incompatible elements, remain dissolved in the hot solution, then crystallize out when the solution cools. The gases and mineral-rich solutions eventually work their way into cracks and become useful mineral veins. Others are mixed with water and sulfur in aqueous solutions. Sometimes minerals in the magma chamber are so hot that they occupy a gaseous state. This liquid bears important substances such as lead, silver, tin, bismuth, and antimony. After the mass of magma has cooled and has mostly frozen or crystallized into a solid, a small amount of liquid rock remains. Some examples include niobium, a metal used in producing superconductors and specialty steels, lanthanum and neodymium, and europium for television monitors and energy-efficient LED light bulbs. The remaining elements are called incompatible elements. Because some elements do not bond easily to form minerals, they exist freely after nearly all the other elements have bonded into compounds or minerals. As cooling proceeds, the elements bind with each other to form chemical compounds or minerals.
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When magma is hot, many elements are free to move. These elements, including copper, chromium, iron, and nickel become concentrated at the bottom. When magma sits in underground chambers, slowly cooling over thousands of years, heavier elements sink. Liquid rock under the ground is called magma. On Mars, heat can come from molten rock moving under the ground and from crater impacts. Ore deposits are produced with the help of large amounts of heat.