Hephaestus Fossae are a system of northwest trending troughs west of the Elysium Mons volcanic construct on Mars. Pitted cones present in the fossae region have previously been interpreted as both igneous and mud volcanism products based on morphometry and morphology observations. We take advantage of multiple orbital remote sensing datasets to assess the validity of these hypotheses. Newly examined visible and near‐infrared spectroscopy observations from the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars provide the strongest line of evidence for an igneous origin for fossae cones based on the presence of olivine signatures on cone rims. We report an expanded set of morphometric parameter values for 253 cones. Morphometry data from High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment and Context Camera (CTX) digital terrain models reveal that fossae cones appear most similar to terrestrial and putative Martian rootless cones but also exhibit similarities with mud volcanoes on Earth and Mars. Nine hundred and twenty‐six mapped cones in our study region exhibit a clustering pattern, as revealed by newly incorporated geospatial analysis, indicating that a nonrandom process controlled feature distribution and individual cones formed near preexisting cones. Cone‐fossae relationship constraints are revealed by CTX images, which show individual fossae cutting across preexisting cones. Fossae region cones lack associated flows that characterize mud volcanoes on Earth and Mars. The study region physiographic setting also does not support a sedimentary depocenter mud volcanism formation scenario. Our analysis of cones in the Hephaestus Fossae region adds to the studied diversity of pitted cones on Mars.

中文翻译：

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火星上的火成火山或泥火山？赫菲斯托斯案例研究

Hephaestus Fossae是火星上的Elysium Mons火山构造以西的西北趋势槽系统。根据形态学和形态学观察结果，存在于小窝区域的点锥已经被解释为火成岩和泥火山产物。我们利用多个轨道遥感数据集来评估这些假设的有效性。紧凑型侦察成像光谱仪在火星上进行的最新检查的可见和近红外光谱观察结果提供了最强的证据，表明视锥缘上存在橄榄石特征，从而使得视锥成火起源。我们报告了一组扩展的253个视锥度参数值。来自高分辨率影像科学实验和上下文照相机（CTX）数字地形模型的形态计量学数据显示，小窝锥看上去与陆地和推定的火星无根锥最相似，但也与地球和火星上的泥火山相似。正如新纳入的地理空间分析所揭示的那样，我们研究区域内的262个映射锥显示出聚类模式，表明非随机过程控制了特征分布，并且单个锥在先前存在的锥附近形成。CTX图像揭示了圆锥窝关系的约束，该图像显示了各个圆锥体在已有圆锥体上的切割。Fossae区域的圆锥体缺乏相关的流动，这些流动不具有地球和火星上的泥火山特征。研究区域的地理环境也不支持沉积沉积中心泥浆火山作用的形成。我们对Hephaestus Fossae地区的视锥细胞的分析增加了对火星上凹纹视锥细胞的研究多样性。