GSA Connects 2021 in Portland, Oregon

Paper No. 226-1
Presentation Time: 9:00 AM-1:00 PM

LOOKING AT SMALL FAULTS AND FOLDS ON THE FLOOR OF THE CANDOR CHASMA, VALLES MARINERIS, MARS, IN ARCGIS PRO, AND COMPARING IT TO TWO TERRESTRIAL ANALOGUES- THE ARBUCKLE MOUNTAINS OF OKLAHOMA AND THE LABRADOR TROUGH IN QUEBEC


MCCARTHY, Joseph, PO Box 373, Charlton City, MA 01508-0373

The southwestern floor of the Candor Chasma in the Valles Marineris canyon system on Mars contains numerous plunging folds, small and large faults, and other small (no more than 6-7 kilometers across, some less than 1 kilometer) deformation features. Offset along the faults is sometimes less than 100 meters. Previous work on their structure and estimated age was done by Okubo et al. (2008), who made structural maps, and cross sections of the area and wrote the proposed geologic history. This study is comparing these features to folds and faults in the Arbuckle Mountains anticline in Oklahoma, and the folds and faults cutting through the complex Precambrian geology of the Labrador Trough in Quebec. While the geology and formation of these areas is very different, the plunging folds cut by small faults is very similar, and I believe the structures themselves to be good analogues for, due to the similar structural features. The surface of then as well as the cross-sections should be relatively similar. The size of features in the Arbuckle mountains is the same, while the Labrador trough is over a much broader area, with some folds being over 20km across. Using ArcGIS Pro, Google Earth, and JMARS, I plan to map and compare all three of these locations (Candor Chasma, Arbuckles and Labrador) to help us better understand the tectonics on Mars, and the strain relationships associated with these features. I will use Model Builder and iterator tools and other analysis on ArcGIS Pro to help better understand the features. The results show that all three features contain very similar structures with similar amounts of offset, despite their different geology.