UCLA scientist discovers plate tectonics on Mars | Hacker News Reader

UCLA scientist discovers plate tectonics on Mars

washingtonpost.com

21 pointskposehn6 comments

The scientist in the article claims that Mars still has tectonic movements which strikes me as odd. I thought the consensus on Mars tectonics was that it has stopped a long time ago. If there is movement than the core must be liquid and moving. If its core is liquid and moving it would generate a magnetic field. Just like our liquid core creates the magnetic field around earth.

The thing is.... Mars has no significant magnetic field like we have around our home planet. It's also the reasons why more of the sun's radiation gets through to the surface on Mars than on earth. Our magnetic shield deflects radiation, Mars does not have that shield.

It's believed that Mars lost it's liquid core because it's smaller than earth and therefore has a higher surface to volume ration. That caused it to cool off a long time ago.

On Earth the tectonic plates are only 'crust thick', except for areas where they are subducted into the mantle. A liquid substrate is not a requirement for plate movement.

Interesting but I am not getting it. How does plate movement happen without a liquid substrate?

Two materials with different densities and strengths will move differently under the similar forces. As for more detail, wikipedia provides a nice start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plate_tectonics

Thank you. So different densities are sufficient, not liquidity? From the same article on Wikipedia: "Dissipation of heat from the mantle is acknowledged to be the original source of energy driving plate tectonics, through convection or large scale upwelling and doming.". Mars is thought not to have the dissipation of heat any more hence the lack of tectonic movement?

I'm not a geologist much less an astro-geologist so I can only offer what I've picked up on this topic through curiosity along the way but here is my understanding:

Tectonic movements are caused by temperature, density and other material differences, upwelling as you've mentioned and I've also heard that gravitational influences are important, effects of the moon, sun and earth gravity vs the density layout causing strain.

My understanding of the Mars issue is that the planet cooled off much faster than the Earth did, as a result there isn't as much thermal induced stress and upwelling going on. As for why Mars cooled off faster, I don't think anyone knows definitively. Mars has very little atmosphere so it doesn't retain much heat. It is also much smaller than the Earth so it would be expected to cool off faster under equal conditions. On the other hand Venus is also smaller than the Earth but is one seriously hot place, and not completely due to its proximity to the Sun.

So why doesn't Mars have an atmosphere?

Well, it has little to no magnetic field so it is very poorly protected from solar winds, a massive solar ejection could have just ripped the atmosphere off. On the other hand maybe Mars used to have a magnetic field and it was only lost due to cooling effects that occur even with an atmosphere. Using Venus again as a counter point is also has nearly no magnetic field yet it maintains an extremely dense atmosphere so there is no 1:1 correlation with not having a magnetic field and not having an atmosphere.

I don't know of any consensus on what it takes during planet formation to end up with an atmosphere to retain heat and a magnetic field to protect that atmosphere, I've heard lots of theories but its still an open question to be answered.

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