Several large paterae in Arabia Terra are suggested to be calderas that produced colossal explosive eruptions (i.e., supereruptions). If these features are indeed explosive calderas, dispersion modeling suggests extensive ash deposits should be common throughout the region. However, such deposits have not previously been linked with the suggested calderas. Here, we describe layered deposits containing minerals both consistent with and diagnostic of altered volcanic ash throughout Arabia Terra. These deposits include Al-dominant minerals such as montmorillonite, imogolite, and allophane among others. Altered ash deposits are found to thin (from 1-km to 100-m thickness) away from the suggested calderas. We estimate that the volcanic ash observed in Arabia Terra is the result of between 1,000 and 2,000 individual explosive eruptions over 500-million years. Our observations support the hypothesis that Arabia Terra hosted supereruptions in the late Noachian-early Hesperian that repeatedly blanketed the region with layers of ash.

中文翻译：

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阿拉伯土地上早期火星爆炸性火山活动的地层证据

阿拉伯 Terra 中的几个大型 paterae 被认为是产生巨大爆炸性喷发（即超级喷发）的火山口。如果这些特征确实是爆炸性的火山口，分散模型表明整个地区应该普遍存在大量的灰烬沉积物。然而，这些矿床以前并未与建议的火山口联系在一起。在这里，我们描述了含有矿物质的层状沉积物，这些矿物质与整个阿拉伯泰拉的变质火山灰一致并具有诊断性。这些矿床包括以铝为主的矿物，例如蒙脱石、伊毛缟石和水铝石等。发现改变的灰沉积物在远离建议的火山口处变薄（从 1 公里到 100 米厚）。我们估计在阿拉伯泰拉观察到的火山灰是 1000 到 2 年之间的结果，在 5 亿年的时间里发生了 000 次单独的爆炸性喷发。我们的观察结果支持了以下假设：Arabia Terra 在诺亚纪晚期至 Hesperian 早期发生了超级喷发，该地区反复被火山灰层覆盖。