David Gubbins

Mars has a magnetic field originating in its strongly magnetized crust that holds clues to the planet's interior. We apply vector spherical harmonic decomposition to simple candidate magnetic structures to separate the parts responsible for the anomalies from those that remain invisible. A uniform magnetic layer produces no anomalies: spatial variations are essential although secondary magnetization does produce a weak field that might reflect the primordial dynamo field. A hemispheric layer produces anomalies confined to the equator rather than the observed hemispheric difference. A uniformly magnetized crust with variable thickness determined from gravity and topography produces a crustal field with large anomalies at the major impact crater sites that are not observed. These anomalies are not present if the magnetic layer lies deeper than the crater floor. We conclude that decomposing magnetizations in this way is a useful tool in the interpretation of Martian magnetic anomalies.

Mars has a magnetic field originating in its strongly magnetised crust that holds clues to the planet’s interior. We apply vector spherical harmonic decomposition to simple candidate magnetic structures to separate the parts responsible for the anomalies from those that remain invisible. A uniform magnetic layer produces no anomalies: spatial variations are essential although secondary magnetisation does produce a weak field that might reflect the primordial dynamo field. A hemispheric layer produces anomalies confined to the equator rather than the observed hemispheric difference. A uniformly magnetised crust with variable thickness determined from gravity and topography produces a crustal field with large anomalies at the major impact crater sites that are not observed. These anomalies are not present if the magnetic layer lies deeper than the crater floor. We conclude that decomposing magnetisations in this way is a useful tool in the interpretation of Martian magnetic anomalies.

Mars has a magnetic field originating in its strongly magnetised crust that holds clues to the planet’s interior. The relation between magnetic anomalies and the underlying crustal magnetisation is complex because of magnetic structures that produce no observable field. We use a recently-developed method to isolate these “invisible’ structures to explore explanations for the observations. The strong magnetisation suggested by ground observations from InSight can be obtained simply by adding a suitable invisible magnetisation to that required to explain the data. A thin Northern Hemisphere and thick Southern Hemisphere crust produces magnetic anomalies confined around the equator, not the Southern Hemisphere. Variations in crustal thickness produce differences with the satellite field, most notably strong anomalies associated with the impact craters that are not in the data. Magnetisation may be confined to depths greater than that of the craters, or anomalies from shallower material are not observable at satellite altitude.

Most subduction zones have associated long‐wavelength anomalies in the lithospheric magnetic field observed at satellite altitude. We model the 13 subduction zones defined by seismicity and seismic tomography using vertically integrated magnetizations that are increasing, level, or decreasing away from the trench. These mimic end members of a magnetized mantle wedge, a uniform layer, and a magnetized dipping lithospheric slab. They are added to a global model of vertically integrated magnetization based on continental and oceanic geology. We find the dipping slab places the anomaly too close to the trench, while the other two fit the data equally well and use the level model in the main part of the study. Anomalies at the Sunda, Aleutians, Cascadia, Central American, and Kamchatka‐Japan zones are well modeled by uniform magnetization of differing susceptibilities and spatial extents. We show the South American anomaly is weak because the magnetization lies mainly in the null space that produces no external potential magnetic field. There is no anomaly associated with the Ryukyu system, possibly because the present subduction started too recently for magnetization to have formed. The magnetic anomaly stretching down the Baja California peninsula is not present in the prediction because there is no seismicity on which to base a slab geometry, but recent tomography suggests a fossil slab there and we propose historic subduction as the origin of the Baja magnetic anomaly. Finally, we discuss the mineralogical origins of the magnetization and favor serpentinization of the region above the subducted plate.

All models that invoke convection to explain the observed seismic variations in Earth's inner core require unstable inner core stratification. Previous work has assumed that chemical effects are stabilizing and focused on thermal convection, but recent calculations indicate that the thermal conductivity at core temperatures and pressures is so large that the inner core must cool entirely by conduction. We examine partitioning of oxygen, sulfur, and silicon in binary iron alloys and show that inner core growth results in a variable light element concentration with time: oxygen concentration decreases, sulfur concentration decreases initially and increases later, and silicon produces a negligible effect to within the model errors. The result is a net destabilizing concentration gradient. Convective stability is measured by a Rayleigh number, which exceeds the critical value for reasonable estimates of the viscosity and diffusivity. Our results suggest that inner core convection models, including the recently proposed translational mode, can be viable candidates for explaining seismic results if the driving force is compositional.

We construct a model of remanence for the oceans, combine it with a model of induced magnetization for the whole Earth from a previous study, compute the predicted lithospheric geomagnetic field and compare the result with a model, MF7, that is based on satellite data. Remanence is computed by assigning magnetizations to the oceanic lithosphere acquired at the location and time of formation. The magnetizing field is assumed to be an axial dipole that switches polarity with the reversal time scale. The magnetization evolves with time by decay of thermal remanence and acquisition of chemical remanence. The direction of remanence is calculated by Euler rotation of the original geomagnetic field direction with respect to an absolute reference frame, significantly improving previous results which did not include realistic oceanic magnetization computed this way. Remanence only accounts for 24 per cent of the energy of the oceanic magnetization, the induced magnetization being dominant, increasing slightly to 30 per cent of the part of the magnetization responsible for generating geomagnetic anomalies and 39 per cent of the Lowes energy of the geomagnetic anomalies. This is because our model of oceanic crust and lithosphere is fairly uniform, and a uniform layer magnetized by a magnetic field of internal origin produces no external field. The largest anomalies are produced by oceanic lithosphere magnetized during the Cretaceous Normal Superchron. Away from ridges and magnetic quiet zones the prediction fails to match the MF7 values; these are also generally, but not always, somewhat smaller than the observations. This may indicate that the magnetization estimates are too small, in which case the most likely error is in the poorly-known magnetization deep in the crust or upper mantle, or it may indicate some other source such as locally underplated continental lithosphere or anomalous oceanic crust, or even small-scale core fields.