New Perspectives on Ancient Mars

Mars was most active during its first billion years. The core, mantle, and crust formed within 50 million years of solar system formation. A magnetic dynamo in a convecting fluid core magnetized the crust, and the global field shielded a more massive early atmosphere against solar wind stripping. The Tharsis province became a focus for volcanism, deformation, and outgassing of water and carbon dioxide in quantities possibly sufficient to induce episodes of climate warming. Surficial and near-surface water contributed to regionally extensive erosion, sediment transport, and chemical alteration. Deep hydrothermal circulation accelerated crustal cooling, preserved variations in crustal thickness, and modified patterns of crustal magnetization.

¹ Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, Carnegie Institution of Washington, Washington, DC 20015, USA.
² Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
³ Department of Earth and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.
⁴ Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA.
⁵ U.S. Geological Survey, Menlo Park, CA 94025, USA.
⁶ Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63130, USA.
⁷ Laboratory for Terrestrial Physics, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA.
⁸ Department of Geological Sciences, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
⁹ Department of Geological Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
¹⁰ Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics and Department of Geological Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309, USA.
¹¹ Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
¹² Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, TX 77058, USA.
¹³ Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: scs{at}dtm.ciw.edu

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