000004935 001__ 4935
000004935 005__ 20200616081916.0
000004935 0247_ $$2DOI$$a10.1029/2020GL087261
000004935 037__ $$aSCART-2020-0132
000004935 100__ $$aBeuthe, Mikael
000004935 245__ $$aMercury's Crustal Thickness Correlates With Lateral Variations in Mantle Melt Production
000004935 260__ $$c2020
000004935 520__ $$aOver the first billion years of Mercury's history, mantle melting and surface volcanism produced a secondary magmatic crust varying spatially in composition and mineralogy. By combining geochemical mapping from MESSENGER with laboratory experiments on partial melting, we translate the surface mineralogy into lateral variations of surface density and calculate the degree of mantle melting required to produce surface rocks. If lateral density variations extend through the whole crust, the local crustal thickness correlates well with the degree of mantle melting. Low-degree mantle melting produced a thin crust below the northern volcanic plains (19 ± 3 km), whereas high-degree melting produced the thickest crust in the ancient high-Mg region (50 ± 12 km), refuting the hypothesis of an impact origin for that region. The thickness-melting correlation has also been observed for the oceanic crust on Earth and might be a common feature of secondary crust formation on terrestrial planets.
000004935 536__ $$aBR/$$c143/$$fA2/COME-IN) and the Belgian PRODEX program managed by the European Space Agency in collaboration with the Belgian Federal Science Policy Office
000004935 594__ $$aNO
000004935 6531_ $$aMercury
000004935 6531_ $$aCrust
000004935 6531_ $$aVolcanism
000004935 700__ $$aCharlier, Bernard
000004935 700__ $$aNamur, Olivier
000004935 700__ $$aRivoldini, Attilio 
000004935 700__ $$aVan Hoolst, Tim
000004935 773__ $$c1-9$$ne2020GL087261$$p Geophysical Research Letters$$v47$$y2020
000004935 8560_ $$fmikael.beuthe@observatoire.be
000004935 85642 $$ahttps://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1029/2020GL087261
000004935 905__ $$apublished in
000004935 980__ $$aREFERD