Accommodation of lithospheric shortening on Mercury from altimetric profiles of ridges and lobate scarps measured during MESSENGER flybys 1 and 2

Topography of the Northern Hemisphere of Mercury from MESSENGER Laser Altimetry

“…Finally, long-wavelength changes in topography could be a deformational response to interior planetary cooling and contraction (27). Evidence for topographic changes during Mercury's evolution is consistent with evidence from the geometry of ridges and lobate scarps that these features accommodated surface strain over a substantial fraction of Mercury's geological history (28). Observations of the topography add to the growing body of evidence that Mercury was a tectonically, volcanically, and dynamically active planet for much of its evolution.…”

Magnitude of global contraction on Mars from analysis of surface faults: Implications for martian thermal history

“…A global system of lobate scarps has been observed on Mercury's surface (Murray et al, 1974;Strom et al, 1975;Solomon and Chaiken, 1976;Cordell and Strom, 1977;Melosh and McKinnon, 1988;Thomas et al, 1988;Watters et al, 2009) which suggests that a period of global contraction may have occurred between $3.5 and 4.0 Ga Strom et al, 1975;Solomon and Chaiken, 1976;Solomon, 1986;Hauck et al, 2004;Watters et al, 2009;Watters and Nimmo, 2010;Zuber et al, 2010). It has also been suggested that these structures record only a fraction of the total global contraction Mercury has undergone (Watters et al, 2004;Watters et al, 2009; and .…”

“…The surface record of tectonic deformation provides a record of a planet's thermal and tectonic evolution (Solomon and Chaiken, 1976;Banerdt et al, 1992;Schubert et al, 1992;Watters, 1993;Andrews-Hanna et al, 2008;Zuber et al, 2010). This relationship has been used on Mercury, the Moon, Mars, and icy outer planet satellites in an attempt to understand and bound the thermal evolution of these bodies.…”

Planetary Tectonics and Volcanism: The Inner Solar System

“…It is important to note, however, that the values for T E calculated by eqn [1] can give quite different values from those calculated using other methods. For example, Zuber et al (2010) estimated T E for Mercury to be on the order of 30-60 km, based on topographic measurements of contractional features. Smith et al (2012) used orbital data collected from the MESSENGER (MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging) spacecraft to estimate Mercury's T E to be only 70-90 km.…”

“…Topographic relief across lobate scarps ranges from 0.9 to 2.0 km. Based on the measurements of fault scarp heights and the modeling of thrust fault behaviors, the estimate for Mercury's T E at time of faulting was on the order of 35-40 km (Watters et al, 2002); recent measurements using the MESSENGER Mercury Laser Altimeter (Cavenaugh et al, 2007) allowed Zuber et al (2010) to estimate values as high as 60 km for Mercury's T E .…”