Possible water deposits, and life underneath Olympus Mons, Mars

Olympus Mons is the tallest volcano and mountain in the Solar System and it’s located on Mars. At the height of 27 kilometers, the volcano is three times higher than earth’s Mount Everest and covers an area the size of the state Arizona. Because of its size since the late 19th century it was already known to astronomers. It’s considered as a shield volcano like Mauna Kea in Hawaii. In the surface of the western scarp, there’s a region that dated to only 2 million years old, suggesting that the mountain may yet have some ongoing volcanic activity.
The Volcano is actually the most likely spot in the hunt for habitable zones on Mars. After studying computer models of Olympus Mons’ formation, Patrick McGovern and Julia Morgan, from Rice University, are proposing that pockets of ancient water could still be trapped under the mountain. Using particle dynamics simulation, they determined that only the presence of ancient clay sediments can account for the volcano’s asymmetric shape. The presence of sediment indicates water was or is still involved.
Because of NASA’s Phoenix Lander finding ice underneath the Martian surface on 2008, Morgan and McGovern believe water could still be trapped in the sediment underneath the mountain, and support life. “This deep reservoir, warmed by geothermal gradients and magmatic heat and protected from adverse surface conditions, would be a favored environment for the development and maintenance of thermophilic organisms,” they wrote. Such organisms on Earth exist along deep geothermal vents on the ocean floor.