Introduction
Strong magnetic anomalies have been detected over the south hemisphere of Mars. The Mars missions prior to Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) detected no appreciable magnetic field around the planet, which led to the conclusion that the Martian core field is weaker than Earth's by more than an order of magnitude. However, orbiting at elevations as low as 100ā200 km during the science phase and aerobreaking phase, MGS detected a very strong crustal magnetic field, as strong as 200 nT, over the ancient southern highlands (Acuna et al., 1999), indicating that the Martian crust is more magnetic than Earth's by more than an order of magnitude.
There is evidence from the Martian meteorites that a magnetic field as strong as ā¼3000 nT has existed on the surface of Mars. The oldest Martian meteorite (ALH84001) formed before 4 Ga (e.g., Collinson, 1997; Kirschvink et al., 1997; Weiss, et al., 2002; Antretter et al., 2003) and the young Martian meteorites that have crystallization ages...
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Acknowledgment
This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada.
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ArkaniāHamed, J. (2007). Magnetic Field of Mars. In: Gubbins, D., Herrero-Bervera, E. (eds) Encyclopedia of Geomagnetism and Paleomagnetism. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-4423-6_176
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