Basaltic melts are produced when convection adiabatically brings deep and hot mantle to lower pressures. Such primary melts were extracted from the mantle of Mars, crystallized near the surface and progressively built the Martian crust. This process displaced a large fraction of the heat producing elements from the mantle to the crust and created an insulating layer that slowed down further cooling of the mantle. The complex crust-mantle system controlled many aspects of the geologic history of Mars, including the development of an atmosphere and whether conditions favorable to life could have existed. Our knowledge of the mineralogy, chemical composition and physical properties of the crust of Mars is rapidly expanding. Global geodynamical models can be used to interpret the available data and constrain the processes of crust-mantle differentiation. However, existing models still treat melting in a simplified way. For example, the degree of melting is often assumed to increase linearly above the solidus temperature, while the density of the residue is assumed to decrease linearly. Calculating the density of the residual mantle more accurately is critical because the compositional buoyancy that develops during partial melting fundamentally modifies mantle dynamics. Here, we present an improved parametrization of partial melting of the Martian mantle, which will be combined with the convection code Gaia. We created a new empirical model of melting that calculates the composition of the extracted melts and, when combined to thermodynamic models (e.g., Perple_X), the density of the corresponding residual mantle. Another advantage of the new melting parametrization is that the major-element composition of partial melts can be tracked and used to constrain the petrogenesis of surface rocks. Preliminary results will be compared to available Martian rocks believed to represent primary mantle melts or melts affected by minor fractional crystallization.

The efficiency of heat transfer in the outer shell of icy satellites is important to determine the evolution and thermal state of their interior with major implications for the cooling behavior of an internal ocean. In this study, we systematically investigate thermal convection in the ice shell of Europa using an Arrhenius viscosity and accounting for ice I material that is dependent on both grain size and strain rate. To this end, we employ the geodynamical code GAIA [1] with a mixed rheology approach similar to [2], and perform calculations in a 2D Cartesian box and spherical annulus geometry for two values of the ice shell thickness (i.e., 30 and 70 km). In our simulations, we test various constant grain size values. In a first serie of simulations, we tested the importance of the dislocation creep mechanism for modeling convection in Europa’s ice shell. Our results show that, in a mixed diffusion-dislocation creep rheology, diffusion creep is the dominant heat transfer mechanism, similar to the study of [3]. A pure dislocation creep rheology leads to a conductive ice shell. Dislocation creep may become dominant if its rheological prefactor increases by about 5 orders of magnitude, which even taking into account the uncertainty associated with rheological measurements is considered unrealistic. Additional simulations that use a mixed diffusion-basal slip rheology show that for ice shells, basal slip may be a relevant deformation mechanism in addition to diffusion creep. Another important aspect is that the efficiency of heat transfer is larger for a thick ice shell (70 km, compared to a thinner one (i.e., 30 km)). However, the dimensional surface heat flow obtained for a thin ice shell is larger than for a thicker one. This is caused by the rescaling of non-dimensional parameters to a dimensional heat flow. References: [1] Hüttig et al., PEPI 2013; [2] Schulz et al., GJI 2019; [3] Harel et al., Icarus 2020.

The InSight mission [1] landed in November 2018 in the Elysium Planitia region [2] bringing the first geophysical observatory to Mars. Since February 2019 the seismometer SEIS [3] has continuously recorded Mars’ seismic activity, and a list of the seismic events is available in the InSight Marsquake Service catalog [4]. In this study, we predict present-day seismic velocities in the Martian interior using the 3D thermal evolution models of [5]. We then use the 3D velocity distributions to interpret seismic observations recorded by InSight. Our analysis is focused on the two high quality events S0173a and S0235b. Both have distinguishable P- and S-wave arrivals and are thought to originate in Cerberus Fossae [6], a potentially active fault system [7]. Our results show that models with a crust containing more than half of the total amount of heat producing elements (HPE) of the bulk of Mars lead to large variations of the seismic velocities in the lithosphere. A seismic velocity pattern similar to the crustal thickness structure is observed at depths larger than 400 km for cases with cold and thick lithospheres. Models, with less than 20% of the total HPE in the crust have thinner lithospheres with shallower but more prominent low velocity zones. The latter, lead to shadow zones that are incompatible with the observed P- and S-wave arrivals of seismic events occurring in Cerberus Fossae, in 20° - 40° epicentral distance. We therefore expect that future high-quality seismic events have the potential to further constrain the amount of HPE in the Martian crust. Future work will combine the seismic velocities distribution calculated in this study with modeling of seismic wave propagation [8, 9]. This will help to assess the effects of a 3D thermal structure on the waveforms and provide a powerful framework for the interpretation of InSight’s seismic data. [1] Banerdt et al., Nat. Geo. 2020; [2] Golombek et al., Nat. Comm. 2020, [3] Lognnoné et al., Nat. Geo. 2020, [4] InSight MQS, Mars Seismic Catalogue, InSight Mission V3, 2020, https://doi.org/10.12686/A8, [5] Plesa et al., GRL 2018, [6] Giardini et al., Nat. Geo. 2020, [7] Taylor et al., JGR 2013, [8] Bozdag et al., SSR 2017, [9] Komatitsch & Tromp, GJI 2002.

The martian surface is predominantly covered by FeO-rich basalts and their alteration products. Several samples, either analyzed in situ by rovers or recovered as meteorites, might represent primitive (i.e. near-primary) basaltic melts that can shed light on the mineralogy, the bulk composition, and the temperature of their mantle sources. We recently developed a new melting model, called MAGMARS, that can predict the melt compositions of FeO-rich mantles and the martian mantle in particular (Collinet et al., submitted to JGR:P). It represents a more accurate alternative to pMELTS (Ghiorso et al., 2002, G3), which systematically overestimates the FeO and MgO content of martian melts and underestimates the SiO2 content (by up to 8 wt.%). MAGMARS can simulate near-fractional and batch melting of various mantle compositions. For example, MAGMARS can produce melts identical to the Adirondack-class basalts by near-fractional melting, between 2.3 and 1.7 GPa, of a depleted mantle with a potential temperature (Tp) of 1390°C (~7 wt.% melt fraction). For this study, MAGMARS is applied to all other martian basalts from which the primary melt compositions can be inferred in order to constrain their mantle sources: the Columbia hills basalts, igneous rocks from Gale crater, shergottites, nakhlites and Northwest Africa (NWA) 7034/7533. We find that a few basaltic clasts in the pre-Noachian polymict regolith breccia NWA 7034/7533 are the only samples with bulk compositions that could represent melts derived from a primitive mantle. The Columbia hills basalts (Gusev crater), alkali-rich rocks from Gale crater, nakhlites and enriched shergottites are most easily reproduced by melting depleted mantle reservoirs that were re-fertilized to different degrees in alkalis by fluids or melts (i.e. metasomatized sources). Most martian basalts, with the exception of depleted shergottites, can be produced from martian mantle reservoirs with Mg# comprised between 75 and 81. From this sample set, the melting conditions of the martian mantle seem to remain relatively stable through time (Tp = 1400 ± 100 ºC and P = 2 ± 0.5 GPa) but the depleted nature of all mantle sources sampled after the pre-Noachian points towards an early crust-mantle differentiation.