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Science 10 March 2000:
Vol. 287. no. 5459, pp. 1788 - 1793
DOI: 10.1126/science.287.5459.1788
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Reports

Internal Structure and Early Thermal Evolution of Mars from Mars Global Surveyor Topography and Gravity

Maria T. Zuber, 14* Sean C. Solomon, 2 Roger J. Phillips, 3 David E. Smith, 4 G. Leonard Tyler, 5 Oded Aharonson, 1 Georges Balmino, 6 W. Bruce Banerdt, 7 James W. Head, 8 Catherine L. Johnson, 2 Frank G. Lemoine, 4 Patrick J. McGovern, 2dagger Gregory A. Neumann, 14 David D. Rowlands, 4 Shijie Zhong 1

Topography and gravity measured by the Mars Global Surveyor have enabled determination of the global crust and upper mantle structure of Mars. The planet displays two distinct crustal zones that do not correlate globally with the geologic dichotomy: a region of crust that thins progressively from south to north and encompasses much of the southern highlands and Tharsis province and a region of approximately uniform crustal thickness that includes the northern lowlands and Arabia Terra. The strength of the lithosphere beneath the ancient southern highlands suggests that the northern hemisphere was a locus of high heat flow early in martian history. The thickness of the elastic lithosphere increases with time of loading in the northern plains and Tharsis. The northern lowlands contain structures interpreted as large buried channels that are consistent with northward transport of water and sediment to the lowlands before the end of northern hemisphere resurfacing.

1 Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.
2 Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
3 Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
4 Earth Sciences Directorate, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
5 Center for Radio Astronomy, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94035-9515, USA.
6 Groupe de Recherches de Geodesie Spatiale, Toulouse, France.
7 Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
8 Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: zuber{at}mit.edu

dagger    Present address: Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX 77058. USA.

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