The Ganges Mensa province and other interior layered deposits in Valles Marineris have been strongly analogized to the Azas Plateau, a region in the Tuva Republic (a federal subject of Russia) near Lake Baikal and the Mongolian border. The Azas Plateau volcanic field is thought to have formed through subglacial volcanism; that mechanism is used accordingly to interpret the geomorphology of Ganges Mensa, which has been analogized to a terrestrial landform known as a tuya. It has been proposed by some researchers that Ganges Mensa might be an extremely eroded version of one. Historically, other researchers have alternatively proposed that the modern shape of Ganges Mensa was a depositional and not erosional effect. The volcanic activity that formed Ganges Mensa could have occurred into a gigantic pingo-like laccolith composed of ice, or into a thoroughly-frozen lake within Ganges Chasma.