Mercury's crustal thickness correlates with lateral variations in mantle melt production

Abstract

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.