Caratterizzazione di pit craters sui fianchi di Arsia Mons (Marte) attraverso lo studio di immagini della camera CASSIS

The purpose of this thesis is the study and characterization of 12 image of the volcano Arsia Mons captured by the Cassis camera on board of the ESA’s TGO satellite. Arsia is the second biggest volcano on Mars in terms of volume of materials erupted and is composed by a large summit caldera and 2 huge aprons on the side, one extending toward N/N-E and the other toward S/S-W. Cassis camera provides color image with a great resolution of 4.5 m/pixel covering about 3% of the martian surface. The fact that the image are colored helps understanding the different processes that have occurred during the Martian history. This study analyzed every image using different tools and programs such as QGIS for the morphological analysis, Google Mars for the general overview and HiView for small details study of the HiRISE image where it was possible. The final result present a description of every image pointing out every structure and morphology as well as the overview of the area because some of the structures cannot be analyzed on a detailed scale. At the end we described the potential genesis of some pit craters due to volcanic (such as lava tube or rill) or tectonic processes. Moreover, there are some pits that may result from different not yet described processes such as piping which is a particular type of subsurface water erosion of loose pyroclastic materials following a collapse on the surface, or magmatic dyke intrusion of mantle materials causing surface sinkholes. There are a lot of terrestrial analogues easy to study on site that will help understanding better the correlations between Earth and Mars. The conclusions needs further investigations that could be useful for future robotic and human missions to Mars and other rocky planetary bodies that experienced volcanism.