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New Impacts on Mars: Unraveling Seismic Propagation Paths through a Cerberus Fossae Impact Detection
  • +12
  • Constantinos Charalambous,
  • W Thomas Pike,
  • Benjamin Fernando,
  • Natalia Wójcicka,
  • Doyeon Kim,
  • Marouchka Froment,
  • Philippe Lognonné,
  • Savana Woodley,
  • Lujendra Ojha,
  • Valentin T Bickel,
  • Joseph Mcneil,
  • Gareth S Collins,
  • Ingrid J Daubar,
  • Anna Horleston,
  • Bruce Banerdt
Constantinos Charalambous
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College

Corresponding Author:[email protected]

Author Profile
W Thomas Pike
Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, Imperial College
Benjamin Fernando
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Johns Hopkins University
Natalia Wójcicka
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College
Doyeon Kim
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College
Marouchka Froment
Solutions Department, NORSAR
Philippe Lognonné
Université Paris Cité, Institut de physique du globe de Paris, CNRS
Savana Woodley
Open University
Lujendra Ojha
Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, The State University of New Jersey
Valentin T Bickel
Center for Space and Habitability, University of Bern
Joseph Mcneil
Natural History Museum
Gareth S Collins
Department of Earth Science and Engineering, Imperial College
Ingrid J Daubar
Department of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences, Brown University
Anna Horleston
School of Earth Sciences, University of Bristol
Bruce Banerdt
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology

Abstract

To date, eight meteoroid impacts have been identified in the seismic record of NASA's InSight mission on Mars, occurring either closer than 300~km or further than 3500~km. We report the association of a high-frequency marsquake, S0794a, with a new 21.5-m-diameter impact crater discovered at an intermediate distance of 1640~km in the tectonically active Cerberus-Fossae graben system. This impact enables the direct comparison between surface and subsurface sources, as well as providing the first data point in the critical gap between previous impacts, both in distance and crater size. Additionally, the location of this event necessitates a reassessment of previously assumed raypaths of seismic events thought to propagate along a slow crustal waveguide. We find that the raypaths instead penetrate and travel through the faster mantle, implying numerous identified marsquake epicentres should be relocated up to two times further from InSight, with implications for seismically derived impact rates and regional seismicity.
16 Sep 2024Submitted to ESS Open Archive
17 Sep 2024Published in ESS Open Archive