Crustal Remanence as a Possible Source for Mercury's Magnetic Field

Details Crustal Remanence as a Possible Source for Mercury's Magnetic Field Crustal Remanence as a Possible Source for Mercury's Magnetic Field

Apr 2003

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2003eaeja....11558a&link_type=abstract

EGS - AGU - EUG Joint Assembly, Abstracts from the meeting held in Nice, France, 6 - 11 April 2003, abstract #11558

Computer Science

Scientific paper

The simplest thermal evolution models for Mercury predict that, because of its small size, the planet should cool rapidly and its initially molten core should now be fully or nearly solid. The Mariner 10 discovery of Mercury's magnetic field caused a dramatic shift in thinking, and the field is now often ascribed to dynamo generation in a molten outer core. The arguments for rejecting the alternative hypothesis that the field is crustal in origin were based on two important assertions: (1) that intensely magnetized rocks were not believed to be present in the natural environments of the terrestrial planets, and (2) an elegant theorem due to S. K. Runcorn proving that a uniform shell magnetized by an internal source subsequently removed has no external field. Prompted by the MGS discovery of unexpectedly large specific magnetization in the martian crust, as well as laboratory experiments demonstrating the strength of single-domain magnetization, we reexamine the possibility that Mercury's magnetic field may be crustal in origin, and we consider the consequences of breaking the symmetry requisite to Runcorn's theorem. We suggest that the spatially dependent depth to the Curie temperature driven by variable solar insolation creates an asymmetry in the distribution of magnetization, that is consistent with the limited constraints from Mariner 10 on the relative strengths of the dipole and quadrupole components.

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