4. Discussion
The curvilinear faults are interpreted to exhibit a strike-slip sense as
a consequence of the imposition of Claritas- and Pavonis-linked stresses
in the Bathys Planum region. A model presented in Figure 6A illustrates
how the most distinctive characteristics of the faults can be
kinematically explained by the Claritas- and Pavonis-associated stress
fields in this region. It is plausible that extensional stresses acting
obliquely on the pre-existing east-west curvilinear fault set would
drive left-lateral strike-slip motion along this older fault set; the
lateral component of slip at these intersections laterally mobilized the
structures elsewhere on these faults, producing the stepover landforms
observed across the area. Because the Claritas and Pavonis fault sets
intersect these east-west faults from a similar relative direction,
left-lateral slip would be expected in association with stresses tied to
either tectonic center (Figure 6A). It is possible that the curvilinear,
oppositely dipping reverse faults bounding the faulted area might
represent the emplacement of an igneous intrusion at depth: a previously
unreported, but more localized, updoming event in the style of the
tectonic centers identified by Anderson et al. [2001] (Figure 6B).
However, the region within the curvilinear fault sets is not associated
with a topographic high as is observed for other proposed centers of
tectonic activity proposed by Plescia and Saunders [1982], Anderson
et al., [2001], and Ivanov and Head [2006]. If the putative dome
later subsided, this might explain the lack of a clear topographic
expression. However, because the putative dome in Bathys was likely too
small to have been geometrically influenced by the planet’s curvature
[Banerdt et al., 1992], its concentric ring faults would likely have
had to have formed in a reverse sense during the putative dome’s uplift
before being reactivated as normal faults during the dome’s subsidence
[Cole et al., 2005; Acocella et al., 2004], instead of the other way
around [Anderson et al., 2001; Dohm et al., 2009b; Ivanov and Head,
2006].