Premature births: a discovery that advances science - Université de Montréal

For many decades, scientists assumed that Mars was geologically inactive. While its surface is covered in features that attest to its volcanic past, all evidence seemed to indicate that Mars was geologically dead. This is consistent with the fact that Mars' crust has no tectonic plates and instead consists of a single plate, making it a "Stagnant Lid" planet. However, with the arrival of NASA's InSight (Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport) lander, indications that the planet was still "alive" began to accumulate. Beyond "marsquakes" caused by impactors, InSight detected evidence of tectonic activity from within. In a recent study, scientists at Imperial College London and Columbia University presented seismic evidence that a marsquake originated beneath Valles Marineris. According to InSight's data, the event (S0976a) was caused by rocks slipping along fault lines deep within the crust. These findings suggest that faults formed billions of years ago, when Mars was much more active, are unstable enough to rupture under stress.