P2. Mercury's volcanism - Bepicolombo YSSG-SEIS

Description

Magmatic activity on Mercury has mostly contributed to the formation of the crust by repeated eruptions and intrusions of magmas produced by varying degrees of partial melting of the mantle. Explosive volcanism was driven by high volatile content (e.g., carbon and/or sulfur) and probably occurred during a long period of time (3.9 to 1 Ga). Large scale effusive volcanism stopped at around 3.5 Gy when tectonism and Mercury’s contraction was at its highest. Therefore, tectonism, volcanism and volatiles are intimately linked to each other in shaping Mercury’s surface that we see today. The difficulty in identifying the minerals and precise timeline of volcanic and tectonic phases limit our understanding of the thermochemical evolution of Mercury’s interior. Exploration missions, such as MESSENGER help in developing a coherent understanding of Mercury's crustal formation and evolution by combining observations that are directly confronted to thermophysical and thermochemical models of Mercury. Nonetheless, verifying the accuracy of that story becomes crucial to elucidate the persistent questions around Mercury's magmatic volatiles, depth of melting and timing of volcanic episodes. The main objectives of the Mercury’s volcanism project is to make the state of the art of our knowledge on the volcanism of Mercury, to use the available observations to make detailed analyses of the volcanic deposits by combining several methods and finally to propose targets of observations for the BepiColombo mission.

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Meetings of the projects

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Publications/Abstracts related to the project

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