Magnetic Field Signatures of Craters on Mars
Name
Geophysical Research Letters - 2024 - Mittelholz - Magnetic Field Signatures of Craters on Mars.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
1022.71 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
0206793b2c1b7f0a2623c2e722f782e3
Author(s)
Mittelholz, A
Steele, SC
Fu, RR
Johnson, CL
Lillis, RJ
Stucky de Quay, G
Date Issued
March 21, 2024
Journal
Geophysical Research Letters
Publisher
American Geophysical Union
Citation
Mittelholz, A., Steele, S. C., Fu, R. R., Johnson, C. L., Lillis, R. J., & Stucky de Quay, G. (2024). Magnetic field signatures of craters on Mars. Geophysical Research Letters, 51, e2023GL106788.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Craters on Mars are a window into Mars' past and the time they were emplaced. Because the crust is heated and shocked during impact, craters can demagnetize or magnetize the crust depending on the presence or absence of a dynamo field at the time of impact. This concept has been used to constrain dynamo timing. Here, we investigate magnetic anomalies associated with craters larger than 150 km. We find that most of those craters, independent of age, exhibit demagnetization signatures in the form of a central magnetic low. We demonstrate a statistically significant association between such signatures and craters, and hypothesize that the excavation of strongly magnetic crustal material may be an important contribution to the dominance of demagnetized craters. This finding implies that the simple presence or absence of crater demagnetization signatures is not a reliable indicator for the activity of the Martian dynamo during or after crater formation.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
10.1029/2023gl106788
