This image captured by NASA's Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope shows Mars when it was approximately 43 million miles (68 million km) from Earth. A first-ever high-resolution map of Mars' entire magnetic field provides new evidence that Earth-like plate tectonics - great crustal plates pulling apart and crashing together - underpin the Red Planet's surface geology, US space agency NASA said.(AFP/NASA/File)
Those who are not familiar with geophysics probably do not know the significance of this statement. Here on the Earth, where the magnetic field flips roughly every quarter of a million years, any magma or lava that solidifies will be aligned with the magnetic field at the time of solidification. It will not change its alignment unless it receives a physical shock or it melts. This is significant because geophysicists can go out in boats and measure the magnetic field alignment of these rocks. If you do it near a mid-ocean trench, you can calculate how fast the plates have been moving apart for millions of years. It is also one of the strong pieces of evidence that helped confirm the plate tectonics theory.
This is very significant on Mars, and makes it very likely that if we get ground crews on Mars, we can determine the geological history of the planet until the planetary magnetic field failed. We could know more about the early geology of Mars than we do know about the early geology of the Earth (since plate tectonics recycles plates roughly every 250 million years, it is hard to find geological evidence older than that--though it exists in certain places). This is a big plus for all of the planetary scientists out there.
Al Wegener the prophet.
Well then, how did/does Olympus Mons keep cooking as the largest volcano in the Solar System?
Wow. I had thought that Earth was (so far) the only planet that exhibited tectonics.
Anyone know if Venus has been proven to have tectonics? I know they have continents, and it seems that one implies the other.