Indonesian Students Club

The InSight Mission to Mars recorded over 1,000 marsquakes between 2018 - 2022. These data enable direct constraints on the processes that generate seismicity on a single-plate planet and on the radial structure of Mars from crust to core. In this talk, I will provide an overview of InSight’s seismic experiment and discuss evidence for various marsquake source mechanisms, including tectonic faulting, meteorite impacts, and possible magmatic activity. The available evidence suggests that Cerberus Fossae in Elysium Planitia is the most seismically active region of Mars and represents an ongoing extensional rift system. Additionally, compressional faulting near the dichotomy boundary hints at present-day, planet-wide thermal contraction. Lastly, I will discuss how recordings of marsquake waveforms have been used to reveal details of the layered structure of Mars, including the crust, mantle, and core. Together with constraints from mineral physics, these results provide insight into the composition, thermal state, and dynamics of the martian interior, and can advance the debate about the presence of liquid water or hydrous mineral phases in the martian crust.