Mars's Valles Marineris Is Still Rumbling With Marsquakes
Giant canyon on Mars is still tectonically active
Columbia University and Imperial College London researchers have traced a 2021 marsquake recorded by NASA's InSight lander to a fault 20 to 40 kilometers beneath Valles Marineris, the solar system's largest canyon. The quake came from rocks sliding sideways along an ancient fault, showing the canyon is still tectonically active billions of years after it formed—even though Mars has no moving plates. InSight's archived data keeps yielding discoveries long after the mission ended.
It shows that on a planet without plate tectonics, structures created billions of years ago can remain important and still control where the crust breaks today.