Active crustal straining and fault reactivation at Valles Marineris
Abstract
Tectonic deformation on stagnant-lid planets reflects the interaction between long-lived lithospheric structures and evolving stress fields. Whether the ancient tectonic fabrics can localise present-day seismic failure under contemporary stress fields remains poorly tested by direct geophysical observations. Here we show that the farside seismic event, S0976a, detected by InSight in the western hemisphere is a marsquake that occurred in Valles Marineris and involved strike-slip faulting in the deep crust. The stress orientation inferred from the focal mechanism is consistent with reactivation of pre-existing fault systems under a present-day stress field shaped primarily by long-term planetary cooling, regional Tharsis-related loading, and surface erosion-related local unloading. These observations provide direct seismic evidence that inherited fault systems on Mars can remain mechanically favourable for reactivation over billion-year timescales, suggesting that slip on deeply rooted faults remains a key mechanism of long-term strain release in a cooling single-lid planet.
Related
- Kelvin-Helmholtz vortices in the Martian +E hemisphere downstream of crustal magnetic anomalies
- Numerical calculations of neutron star mountains supported by crustal lattice pressure
- Remanent crustal strain on Mars in non-poikilitic olivine of NWA 7721
- New mapping along Ishtar Terra margins: use and limits of Magellan SAR data for testing Venus crustal plateau formation models
- Machine learning-based classification of type 1 active galactic nuclei
BibTeX
@article{song2026active,
title = {{Active crustal straining and fault reactivation at Valles Marineris}},
author = {Jung-Hun Song and Doyeon Kim and Folarin Kolawole and Joel M. Davis and Rebekah Parry and Ross Maguire},
journal = {Nature Communications},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.1038/s41467-026-78193-6},
url = {https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78193-6},
note = {CC BY 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Active crustal straining and fault reactivation at Valles Marineris
AU - Jung-Hun Song
AU - Doyeon Kim
AU - Folarin Kolawole
AU - Joel M. Davis
AU - Rebekah Parry
AU - Ross Maguire
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/15
JO - Nature Communications
DO - 10.1038/s41467-026-78193-6
UR - https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78193-6
AB - Tectonic deformation on stagnant-lid planets reflects the interaction between long-lived lithospheric structures and evolving stress fields. Whether the ancient tectonic fabrics can localise present-day seismic failure under contemporary stress fields remains poorly tested by direct geophysical observations. Here we show that the farside seismic event, S0976a, detected by InSight in the western hemisphere is a marsquake that occurred in Valles Marineris and involved strike-slip faulting in the deep crust. The stress orientation inferred from the focal mechanism is consistent with reactivation of pre-existing fault systems under a present-day stress field shaped primarily by long-term planetary cooling, regional Tharsis-related loading, and surface erosion-related local unloading. These observations provide direct seismic evidence that inherited fault systems on Mars can remain mechanically favourable for reactivation over billion-year timescales, suggesting that slip on deeply rooted faults remains a key mechanism of long-term strain release in a cooling single-lid planet.
SN - 2041-1723
ER -