First approximations to the energy release of giant dikes at Cerberus Fossae, Mars

<p>Historical dike intrusions in the vicinity of volcanic edifices on Earth are known to produce swarms of seismic activity with cumulative seismic moments between 1·10<sup>12</sup> and 1·10<sup>20</sup> Nm, equivalent to moment magnitudes between 2 and 7. On Mars, long linear graben systems are likely to host giant dike complexes at depth, which possibly produced significant seismicity during their intrusion. Not only this, but dike intrusions are also candidates to produce crustal seismicity at present day, which may be detected during the lifespan of the InSight mission. In this work we infer the possible geometry of dikes underneath Cerberus Fossae, and make estimations of the energy released during their intrusion.</p><p>We used cross section area balancing on topographic profiles orthogonal to several of the Cerberus Fossae graben to estimate proxies for the geometry of the underlying dikes (aperture, height, depth, etc.). This technique has already been used to approximate dike properties at the nearby Elysium Fossae, with successful results. At Cerberus Fossae, the obtained dike aspect ratios are consistent with sublinear scaling, which is characteristic of fluid-induced fractures (as expected for dikes). These results support the presence of giant dikes underneath Cerberus, which may be up to 700 m thick, 140 km long, and have heights of up to 20 km.</p><p>Additionally, we used the inferred geometries and assumptions about the host rock mechanical properties to estimate various energy quantities related to dike intrusion, and compared them with the energy releases in terrestrial diking episodes. Two calculations are of special interest; M<sub>d</sub>, the energy associated to dike inflation, and M<sub>s</sub>, an approximation to the cumulative seismic moment release. The obtained M<sub>d</sub> values are between 3.1·10<sup>20</sup> and 5.0·10<sup>21</sup> Nm, and are 1 to 2 orders of magnitude larger than the equivalent moments in terrestrial events. M<sub>s</sub> was calculated from M<sub>d</sub> with two key assumptions; 1) that all aseismic energy was released by the dike, and 2) values of seismic efficiency (the percentage of seismic relative to the total energy released) based on terrestrial examples. The obtained M<sub>s</sub> are between 6.3·10<sup>19</sup> and 2.2·10<sup>21</sup> Nm, which are equivalent to moment magnitudes of 6.5 and 7.9. These are comparable to, albeit slightly larger than, the cumulative moments of some of the largest terrestrial diking events, such as the first episode in the Manda-Hararo sequence (Ethiopia, 2005, M<sub>s </sub>= 6.2) or the Miyake-jima event (Japan, 2000, M<sub>s </sub>= 6.8).</p><p>The Elysium volcanic province is thought to have been active until very recent times, and possibly even at present day. If this is the case, then intrusions in the lower size of the spectrum investigated at Cerberus, and smaller-sized events, may be detected by InSight as a series of crustal seismic events with cumulative moment magnitudes <6. Further research is needed to fully assess the validity of the comparisons between terrestrial and Martian events, and the possible energy releases of dike-induced marsquakes.</p>

Source mechanism solutions of low frequency Martian events based on body wave coda from a single seismic station

<p>On the 26th of November 2018, NASA’s InSight lander successfully touched down on the Martian ground in Elysium Planitia. The lander transported among other instruments a single three-component broadband seismometer to measure seismic events and subsequently determine the seismic activity level and eventually the internal structure of Mars. In this study we focus on characterizing the source mechanisms of the highest-quality marsquakes detected so far: The events with highest SNR occurred on sols 173 (S0173a, May 23rd 2019) and 235 (S0235b, July 27th 2019) with Mw > 3.5, showing clearly polarized P and S waves. The InSight MarsQuake Service has estimated their distances to be around 27 degrees, nearby the Cerberus Fossae Graben system. Two more events, S0183a and S0325b have less clear body wave phases and locations, but are also interpreted to be related to it.</p><p>We have developed a grid-search based method to fit synthetic waveforms to the observed first arriving P and S wave trains. The four source parameters we invert for in this study are the three unique orientation angles of the source mechanism, strike (φ), dip (δ) and rake (λ), and the depth of the event. Synthetic seismograms are generated by computing Green’s functions based on the epicentral distance determined by the InSight MarsQuake Service (MQS) and radially symmetric velocity models. These Green’s function are then convolved with a source time function including an estimated global body wave attenuation to obtain realistic seismograms. </p><p>The two high-quality event recordings originating from the Cerberus Fossae (CF) fault system were analyzed. Multiple velocity models, frequency bands and window lengths around the arriving phases were used to explore the non-uniqueness in the inverse problem of the inherently ambiguous single-station data. We found that using plausible structural models based on geophysical modeling, the first 10-15 seconds of the waveforms can be fit, constraining the source mechanism and depth, but that the estimation of the uncertainty remains challenging.</p>