Quancheng Huang, Nicholas C Schmerr, Scott D King, Doyeon Kim, Attilio Rivoldini, Ana-Catalina Plesa, Henri Samuel, Ross R Maguire, Foivos Karakostas, Vedran Lekić, Constantinos Charalambous, Max Collinet, Robert Myhill, Daniele Antonangeli, Mélanie Drilleau, Misha Bystricky, Caroline Bollinger, Chloé Michaut, Tamara Gudkova, Jessica C E Irving, Anna Horleston, Benjamin Fernando, Kuangdai Leng, Tarje Nissen-Meyer, Frederic Bejina, Ebru Bozdağ, Caroline Beghein, Lauren Waszek, Nicki C Siersch, John-Robert Scholz, Paul M Davis, Philippe Lognonné, Baptiste Pinot, Rudolf Widmer-Schnidrig, Mark P Panning, Suzanne E Smrekar, Tilman Spohn, William T Pike, Domenico Giardini, W Bruce Banerdt
Constraining the thermal and compositional state of the mantle is crucial for deciphering the formation and evolution of Mars. Mineral physics predicts that Mars' deep mantle is demarcated by a seismic discontinuity arising from the pressure-induced phase transformation of the mineral olivine to its higher-pressure polymorphs, making the depth of this boundary sensitive to both mantle temperature and composition. Here, we report on the seismic detection of a midmantle discontinuity using the data collected by NASA's InSight Mission to Mars that matches the expected depth and sharpness of the postolivine transition...
October 18, 2022: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America