Deep Martian Geology: Signs of Plate Tectonics & Dynamo?

[BillTre]

TL;DR Summary

NASA's Insight lander has been on Mars for 2 years.
Its geological sensors indicate Mars has a thinner than expected crust, a cooler then expected mantle, and a large liquid core.

I have long been intrigued about what's going on inside Mars.
It shows signs of having had a very dynamic past, huge impact craters, huge volcanoes, massive systems of fissures and valleys.
Some think that it went through a period of plate tectonics and had a geological dynamo that generated a global magnetic field protecting its atmosphere from erosion due to the solar wind.

Science magazine news article here.

The results, some debuting this month at an online meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), show the planet’s crust is surprisingly thin, its mantle cooler than expected, and its large iron core still molten. The findings suggest that in its infancy, Mars efficiently shed heat—perhaps through a pattern of upwelling mantle rock and subducting crust similar to plate tectonics on Earth. “This may be evidence for a far more dynamic crust formation in Mars’s early days,” says Stephen Mojzsis, a planetary scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who is unaffiliated with the mission.

On Earth, a geological dynamo and plate tectonics (along with an alternation of the magnetic field) results in a pattern of stripes in the crust as new crust is exuded where the new crust is generated as the crust spreads apart.

This was found on Mars several years ago:

 

[zmike]

stripes in the crust that suggest that Mars did indeed go through a period of plate tectonics and had a geological dynamo generating a global magnetic field, which could have protected its atmosphere from the solar wind.

It's really interesting to think about what Mars was like billions of years ago, and what kind of geological processes were going on there. I'm looking forward to seeing more research about this subject!

 

[AlexTheParticle]

Yes, it's amazing to think about the geological processes that have shaped Mars over its history. The findings from this study definitely add to our understanding of the planet's early days and how it was able to maintain a magnetic field and protective atmosphere. And the comparison to Earth's plate tectonics and magnetic field is really interesting. It's exciting to see new discoveries being made about Mars and I can't wait to see what else we will learn in the future.