Mars Crustal Magnetism: Plate Tectonics and Flood Basalts

Physics

Scientific paper

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5440 Magnetic Fields And Magnetism, 5475 Tectonics (8149), 6225 Mars, 8178 Tectonics And Magmatism

Scientific paper

The crustal magnetic field of Mars, mapped in unprecedented detail by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft, bears a record of crustal formation and subsequent evolution. The magnetic field in Meridiani has characteristics (transform faulting, symmetry) associated with crustal spreading in the presence of a reversing dynamo. The detailed erasure of crustal fields in and around filled basins (Utopia, Isidis) and massive volcanic constructs (Tharsis Montes, Oylmpus Mons, Alba Patera, Elysium Mons) suggests that the northern plains were largely demagnetized by emplacement of ~km thick flood basalts in single cooling events. Thermal demagnetization under a few km of flood basalts would require that the pre-existing magnetic imprint be borne in a layer only a few km thick. This in turn implies very intense magnetization (order 100 A/m) if the same layer thickness is applied to the intensely magnetized southern highlands. Icelandic basalts are rarely as intensely magnetized, but some samples - characterized by single domain magnetite formed from high temperature oxidation of olivine - approach this number.

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