Origin of the martian dichotomy and Tharsis from a giant impact causing massive magmatism |
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Authors: | Gregor J Golabek Tobias Keller Guizhi Zhu James AD Connolly |
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Institution: | a Institute of Geophysics, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland b Laboratoire des Sciences de la Terre, ENS Lyon, 69364 Lyon Cedex 07, France c Institute of Geochemistry and Petrology, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland |
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Abstract: | The origin of the ancient martian crustal dichotomy and the massive magmatic province of Tharsis remains an open problem. Here, we explore numerically a hypothesis for the origin of these two features involving both exogenic and endogenic processes. We propose a giant impact event during the late stage of planetary formation as the source of the southern highland crust. In a second stage, the extraction of excess heat by vigorous mantle convection on the impacted hemisphere leads to massive magmatism, forming a distinct Tharsis-like volcanic region. By coupling short-term and long-term numerical simulations, we are able to investigate both the early formation as well as the 4.5 Gyr evolution of the martian crust. We demonstrate numerically that this exogenic-endogenic hypothesis is in agreement with observational data from Mars. |
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Keywords: | Geophysics Mars Planetary formation Planetary dynamics |
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