New Research Shows How Mercury's Crust Formed by Extreme Volcanism
New research published in Planetary Research suggests that Mercury's crust was formed by more intense volcanic activity than previously understood. Scientists used silica abundance data to analyze the planet's volcanic history.
Why it matters
Understanding the volcanic history of Mercury provides critical insights into the formation and evolution of rocky planets in our solar system.
Mercury's surface is barren and covered in impact craters, and looks very much like the surface of a long dormant world. NASA's Messenger mission, which spanned from 2011 to 2015, showed us that Mercury's surface has vast lava plains more than one kilometer thick. It also showed us that, in among the craters, there are volcanic features called hollows, along with pyroclastic vents and reddish deposits called faculae. These are evidence of explosive eruptions driven by magma that's rich in volatiles. Mercury's lava plains and other volcanic features are from the past, between about 4.1 and 3.5 billion years ago.
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