The theme of these blogs will be planetary volcanism. I will be reading various articles and books and giving a general summary and my opinion. I intend to study past and present volcanism processes and the magma produced on other worlds in the solar system and compare them to the magma and volcanism processes on Earth.
Earth is the only known world in the solar system that has plate tectonics. We know tectonic plates are subducted under other plates and that causes majority of the volcanism on Earth, with exception of hot spots like Yellowstone and the Hawaiian Islands. So, what could possibly cause the volcanism that is currently taking place on Jupiter's moon Io, or the eruption of liquid nitrogen on Neptune's moon Trition? What caused Mars to be volcanically active millions years and how did Mars come to have the largest volcano in the solar system, Olympus Mons, with out the aid of plate tectonics? By the end of this project I hope to answer these questions and many more.
