So says Dr. Philip Christensen from ASU and a member of the geological team.

It's getting very interesting.

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Whether or not you want my WAG*, here goes:

I think we're seeing evidence of a planet that was once oceanic and already had polar icecaps. I'm talking 90% + surface coverage type oceanic. Then something happens and happens abruptly. (by geological standards not human standards!)

The planet grows.

That's right - grows. I think the Hellas impact site is probably not an impact site at all but a point of massive and rapid tectonic movement. Perhaps mars gained as much as 20 to 35 percent in surface area in as quick as a few million years time.

Something causes it core to expand and the crust to go wildly volcanic in certain areas while expanding tectonic movement occurs elsewhere. and I think the Hellas Basin is the result of a shifting tectonic plates and causing a huge spread. (WAG Evidence: Hellas Basin is 9 miles deep by 1300 miles across - if it were an 1300 mile wide asteroid it would carve a he** of a lot deeper print than nine miles - anything that size or even close to it would've shattered mars into a bunch of asteroids.)

Olympus Mons is formed by the rapid activity. At the same time its atmosphere thins with this expanded surface area and almost all of the moisture is progressively stripped from the surface of mars due to the new variations in atmospheric density except for the poles where the topology combined with the magnetic lines of force help to freeze the water molecules.

The seasons contribute to a regular breakdown of some of this ice but the winds and the extremities of pressure and temperature keep it in either ice or gaseous form.

The basalt on the surface is from this later volcanic age and the hematite is broken down from its earlier era.

I think for evidence leaning towards this WAG we will find more larger deposits of hematite in the red areas and only dust blown residue in Hellas Basin or the blue zones. Basalt and other igneous rocks should be plentiful in the blue zones.

Now what caused the growth of mars? Thats a good question. In a WAG nutshell - I think the planet's cores are responsive to the suns enormous magnetic field and that depending upon the orbit, and position in the field, a planet's core gets "stoked" by the current of this field to varying degrees. What's more I think that this energy is converted by the core to form matter (somewhat like a diamond forming from coal under intense pressure)

Hey, it's a WAG...have fun with it.

SDAI-Tech1

*Wild As* Guess ;-)