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].