Would a super eruption of Olympus Monds explain the death of Mars?

Could well be.

The 'sulfuric-cloud-from-Olympus' thing is actually one possibility. But I think another explanation would do, and it also has something to do with Olympus Mons. Scientists say that Mars was once flowing with water, and can possibly be a living planet. Going back, the volcano (Olympus Mons) is located on the northwestern region of the planet. It's 27kn high and 72km wide. (So vast...). It is located in a region of many more large volcanoes, each of them about 5times the size of Earth's. In the eastern hemisphere, more volcanoes settled. Thus, when the largest of them, Olympus, errupts, you could just imagine what happens. It can't just emit the sulfuric cloud but can also set off a chain reaction of volcanic eruptions in the planet (like a domino). It would set off a vibration that would make almost all if not every volcano to erupt. Such heat would be enough to turn the Earth's pacific ocean into vapor and greenhouse effect is another thing. So that's it. I think it's the 'end-of-Mars-story'.=)

I'll say no on the question. The event itself isn't large enough to explain a planetary event like that. The chain reaction thing I might buy though. I'm more prone to believe that life on mars didn't develop the sufficient format of genes to produce oxygen like it did on earth. So basically life arises, can't expand on it's premise, life dies out over time. I imagine if you take some of the base life forms on earth that did get that chance and put them on mars's polar regions you could probably start a terraforming process now though. You could likely even engineer some of the oceans lower plant life to adapt to the atmosphere there. Put up a few geothermal generators to keep the planet at a more stable temperature during it's day/night cycle and keep the elements in the mantle in the atmosphere and maybe.. just maybe.. the planet will come alive again in time. There's a real good chance that whatever life was there in microscopic form, is just waiting for that chance and we'll see the planet awaken.

I don't believe that Mars is geologically active now but you must mean in the distant past. If it were and the volcano blew up, I doubt that it could explain the destruction of all life. As big of a volcano as it is, we have super volcanoes on Earth that are actually larger, like Toba. It is so big that it forms a caldera 30 by 100 km wide. There is another formation in Siberia called the Siberian Traps that were much more massive and happened at the time of the greatest extinction on Earth. That buried an area larger than Europe in more than a million cubic km of magma.

http://palaeo.gly.bris.ac.uk/Palaeofiles/Permian/S...

It is possible but I think mars just didn't have enough gravity, sunlight and gases to be make a suitable long enough to get beyond the most primitive microbes. They probably just died, if they existed, when the gases bled off into space and the planet cooled.

No. It would actually be quite the opposite. If Mars was geologically active still today the atmosphere would be much denser and more livable as volcanoes spew out all kinds of gasses, not just sulfurous ones. One super eruption would not kill a planet as the damaging effects are quite shorterm. Yellowstone alone is responsible for many supereuptions, the latest one about 640000 years ago, and earth is still very much livable. If earth had no volcanism our atmosphere would be a lot thinner too.

It is Olympus Mons.