Are there any landforms, minerals, rocks, on Mars that doesn exist on Earth?
Veronica, Gates Intermediate School, Scituate, MA ANSWER: Hi Veronica, That’s a great question and one that we ask ourselves a lot. We know that Mars has landforms like Earth’s, but just on a much larger scale. For example a giant volcano on Mars, called Olympus Mons, is 24 kilometers (15 miles) high, 550 kilometers (340 miles) in diameter and is rimmed by a 6 kilometers (4 miles) high scarp. It is one of the largest volcanoes in the Solar System. By comparison the largest volcano on Earth is Mauna Loa, Hawaii that is 9 kilometers (6 miles) high and 120 kilometers (75 miles) across. Other examples include, Valles Marineris (a huge canyon) and large impacts. Other then that, the truth is we really don’t know if Mars has any un-Earth like things. When it comes to the rocks and minerals all we have to compare them to are the things we know that occur here on Earth.
