Ancient Supervolcano led to the Formation of Eden Patera, a Giant Martian Basin

Latest observations by astronomers suggest that the giant Martian basin,  Eden Patera,  is the result of an ancient supervolcano eruption instead of a crater impact, which was previously believed.

 This observation was made by the scientists from NASA and the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. The researchers examined the topographic data and images of the Red Planet they had accumulated with the help of unmanned aircrafts and orbiters, such as NASA's Mars Global Surveyor, Mars Odyssey, Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft and European Space Agency's Mars Express and then arrived at this conclusion.

This formerly known Mars crater was described as volcanic caldera by Joseph Michalski, a researcher affiliated with the Planetary Science Institute and the Natural History Museum in London, and Jacob Bleacher of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. Caldera refers to a shallow volcanic feature formed as an aftermath of the volcanic eruption to support this claim.

At times people get confused between volcanic caldera and volcanic crater. Calderas refers to huge volcanic craters, which are formed either by the collapse of the rocks present on the surface, into an empty magma chamber or they are formed as an aftermath of volcanic eruption, according to a geology.com report.

"On Mars, young volcanoes have a very distinctive appearance that allows us to identify them," Michalski said in a news release. "The long-standing question has been what ancient volcanoes on Mars look like. Perhaps they look like this one."

This caldera is assumed to have formed after a huge amount of magma fused with gas from the Martian surface, erupted and then collapsing the surface into the ground.

Similar eruptions have occurred ages back, which can be seen in Yellowstone National Park, located in the western U.S., New Zealand's Lake Taupo and Indonesia's Lake Toba.

"This highly explosive type of eruption is a game-changer, spewing many times more ash and other material than typical, younger Martian volcanoes," Bleacher stated.

"During these types of eruptions