Date Available

7-22-2015

Year of Publication

2015

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Document Type

Master's Thesis

College

Arts and Sciences

Department/School/Program

Earth and Environmental Sciences (Geology)

First Advisor

Dr. Dhananjay Ravat

Abstract

This is a new method of determining magnetization strength, direction, and paleopole location from magnetic anomalies across edges of the equatorial band of magnetic sources on Mars. Different assumed locations of paleopoles result in different inducing field directions in the vicinity of an edge. Thus, with different paleopoles, the resulting magnetic fields from the edges of magnetic sources are different, and correlate differently with the observed fields. Best correlating observed and computed magnetic edge effect fields yield the potential paleopoles. The total gradient (TG) of the z-component magnetic field was used to identify the edges of magnetization boundaries. Three edge segments yielded meaningful paleopoles. They are: (15°S, 285°E)/(0°, 292.5°E) across the northeast trending edge east of Tharsis; (15°N, 195°E) across the southern boundary located in the Terra Cimmeria and Terra Sirenum area; and (15°S, 165°E)/(45°S, 180°E) across the northeast edge of Hellas Planitia. The effective magnetization in these regions (assuming 40km magnetic layer thickness) is 7.02, 42.13-94.79, and 2.63-3.51 A/m, respectively. Evidence from the overlap of regions of TG and chronostratigraphy suggests that the dynamo was active during the Noachian and may have been active in the early Hesperian.

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