Speaker: Sarah Steele, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University
Title: Insights into Mars’s magnetic history from meteorite and impact basin magnetism
Host: Chi Yan
Abstract: Mars’s early magnetic dynamo may have played a key role in the planet’s climatic evolution and habitability, with its termination potentially triggering the shift to Mars’s present cold and dry conditions. Generation of the dynamo in Mars’s core also connects the magnetic field’s strength and longevity to otherwise-obscured properties of the planet’s deep interior. Despite these connections to Mars’s climate and interior, the dynamo’s strength, stability, and duration remain uncertain. In this talk, I will discuss how pairing paleomagnetic constraints from meteorites with modeling of magnetization acquisition in Martian impact basins has improved our understanding of Mars’s magnetic history.