Seismologists prepare the first-ever map of Mars' underground layers using NASA's probe

Mapping Earth’s subsurface just became obsolete as seismologists have created first-ever map of Mars’ underground layers within first 660 feet (200 meters) of its crust. map was created by a team of researchers from Swiss Federal Institute of Techlogy (ETH) in Zurich using sound of winds that created vibrations near equator of Mars.

In an interview with .com, Cedric Schmelzbach, a geophysicist at ETH said-

We used a technique that was developed here on Earth to characterize places for earthquake risk and to study subsurface structure. technique is based on ambient vibration. On Earth, you have oceans, winds, that make ground shake all time, and shaking that you measure at a certain point has an imprint of subsurface.

Making measurements on Earth is easy since vibrations can be detected clearly, winds are stronger owing to a thick atmosphere and re are numerous sensitive instruments available to do job. However, Mars offers a completely different environment as re are oceans to create vibrations, winds are extremely weak and scientists relied on just one instrument. researchers reportedly used instruments of Insight Probe, which landed in 2018, on Elysium Planitia region of Mars. 

Here’s what was found under Mars’ surface

According to seismologists, interaction of winds on Mars with its craters exposed planet’s subsurface in intense detail as y found a layer of deep sediments and solidified lava shrouded with a 10-foot-thick blanket of sandy regolith. Moreover, sedimentary layer, which came as a surprise to experts, is sandwiched between two layers me of ancient lava some 100 to 230 feet underneath surface. scientists estimated that two layers date back to somewhere between 1.7 billion and 3.6 billion years ago and above younger layer is a 50-feet-thick band of materials me of rocks. Talking about surprising sedimentary layer, Schmelzbach said as per .com-

We're still working on how to interpret that and how to date how old this layer is. But it tells us that probably geological history at that site is really more complicated than we originally thought and that probably more processes h happened in past at that place.

Im: Twitter/@ETH