Mercury is the least well understood of the terrestrial planets. However, this is due to change when the MESSENGER spacecraft gets there in 2009. So I have started applying some of the geophysical techniques developed elsewhere to Mercury. For instance, we can place constraints on its crustal thickness by considering the effect of lower crustal flow (just like on Mars). And we can use observations of faulting to infer something about temperature gradients in the crust. A longer term question is whether Mercury’s magnetic field is really due to a present-day dynamo and if so, how has it survived? Again, analogies with Mars will provide a way of answering this question.
Publications
Here is a list of Mercury-related topics I have published or submitted:
Depth of faulting on Mecury: Implications for heat flux and crustal and
effective elastic thickness, F. Nimmo and T.R. Watters, Geophys. Res. Lett. 31(2),
L02701, 2004 Reprint;
GRL Cover
Constraining the crustal thickness on Mercury from viscous topographic
relaxation,
F. Nimmo, Geophys. Res. Lett., 29(5), 1063, 10.1029/2001GL013883,
2002. (PDF file
available)
Department of Earth and Space Sciences home page
Last Modified: 18 Oct 2004.