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Letter

Nature Geoscience 2, 19–23 (1 January 2009) | doi:10.1038/ngeo392

Migration of Tharsis volcanism on Mars caused by differential rotation of the lithosphere

Shijie Zhong

The two most striking surface features on Mars are the Tharsis Rise and the crustal dichotomy. The crustal dichotomy, an elevation difference of |[sim]|5|[thinsp]|km between the southern highlands and the northern lowlands, is the oldest geological feature on Mars, and the Tharsis Rise is a vast volcanic construct in the equatorial region of the planet, near the dichotomy boundary.