New Discoveries Unveil Mysteries of Mars's Crust and Heat Sources.
The largest marsquake ever recorded by NASA's InSight lander in May 2022 has helped scientists estimate the average global crustal thickness of Mars between 42-56 kilometers (26-35 miles), with the thickest crust located in the Tharsis province and the thinnest crust located at the Hellas impact basin. The study also found similar densities of the crusts between the northern and southern hemispheres, despite each having a large difference in their crustal thickness, and hypothesized that Mars could be geologically active today due to the decay of radioactive elements, including uranium, thorium, and potassium, of which between 50-70 percent was found to reside with the Martian crust.