[Rockhounds] A quake on Mars showed its crust is thicker than Earth’s

[Kreigh Tomaszewski]

Planetary scientists now know how thick the Martian crust is, thanks to the
strongest Marsquake ever observed.

On average, the crust is between 42 and 56 kilometers thick
<https://essopenarchive.org/users/549578/articles/627343-global-crustal-thickness-revealed-by-surface-waves-orbiting-mars>,
researchers report in a paper to appear in Geophysical Research
Letters*.* That’s
roughly 70 percent thicker than the average continental crust on Earth.

The measurement was based on data from NASA’s InSight lander, a stationary
seismometer that recorded waves rippling through Mars’ interior for four
Earth years. Last May, the entire planet shook with a magnitude 4.7 quake
that lasted more than six hours
<https://www.sciencenews.org/article/nasa-insight-lander-mars-marsquake> (*SN:
5/13/22*). “We were really fortunate that we got this quake,” says
seismologist Doyeon Kim of ETH Zurich.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/mars-quake-crust-thickness-earth