论文标题
汞的地壳厚度与地幔熔体产生的横向变化相关
Mercury's crustal thickness correlates with lateral variations in mantle melt production
论文作者
论文摘要
水星的外壳具有复杂的结构，这是由于数十亿年的火山造成的。航天器信使已经从轨道上发现了化学成分的表面变化。将这些测量与实验室实验结合在部分熔化方面，我们估计表面密度和地幔熔化程度的变化需要产生表面岩石。如果表面密度代表了深层地壳密度，则可以解释北半球的地壳厚度变化的一半以上，这是通过地幔熔化的横向变化来解释的。地壳在镁贫民窟北部火山平原下方是薄的，而最厚的地壳在西半球中北纬度的富含镁的区域中发现。因此，富含镁的区域不是由于早期影响而导致的，而是由于广泛的地幔融化。还观察到了地球上的海洋壳的厚度融化关系，可能是陆生星行的共同特征。
Mercury's crust has a complex structure resulting from a billion years of volcanism. The surface variations in chemical composition have been identified from orbit by the spacecraft MESSENGER. Combining these measurements with laboratory experiments on partial melting, we estimate which variations in surface density and degree of mantle melting are required to produce surface rocks. If the surface density is representative of the deep crustal density, more than one half of crustal thickness variations in the northern hemisphere are explained by lateral variations in mantle melting. The crust is thin below the magnesium-poor Northern Volcanic Plains whereas the thickest crust is found in the magnesium-rich region located at mid-northern latitudes in the Western Hemisphere. The magnesium-rich region is thus not due to an early impact but rather to extensive mantle melting. The thickness-melting relation has also been observed for the oceanic crust on Earth and might be a common feature of terrestrial planets.
