Abstract
The current state of Mars’s interior is fundamental to understanding its thermal evolution, volcanic history, and potential habitability. While global-scale magmatism has declined since the Amazonian epoch, recent volcanism and concentrated seismicity in Elysium Planitia suggest localized, ongoing mantle activity, yet direct evidence has remained elusive. Here, we analyze InSight seismic data, combining receiver functions and PP/SS precursors to image crustal and upper mantle structures beneath three locations in Elysium Planitia. We identify consistent low-velocity zones at depths of ~70–100 km, marked by shear wave velocity reductions up to 36%. These anomalies are best explained by adiabatic decompression melting within a high-temperature upper mantle, with estimated melt fractions of 2–12%, potentially aided by the presence of water. Our results provide direct seismic evidence for partial melting and active dynamic mantle processes beneath Elysium Planitia, likely driven by a mantle plume, suggesting that Mars’s interior remains thermochemically active today.
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Code availability
The codes used for data processing, seismic inversions, mineral physics analyses, and figure generation are available on Code Ocean at https://doi.org/10.24433/CO.0347831.v2.
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Acknowledgements
We acknowledge NASA, CNES, partner agencies and institutions (UKSA, SSO, DLR, JPL, IPGP-CNRS, ETHZ, IC, MPS-MPG) and the operators of JPL, SISMOC, MSDS, IRIS-DMC, and PDS for providing SEED SEIS data. We appreciate Philippe Lognonné, Zongbo Xu, and Taichi Kawamura for their insightful discussions, and we thank Sizhuang Deng for sharing his autocorrelation data. This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China 42241117, the B-type Strategic Priority Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Grant XDB41000000, the Emerging Directions Program of the School of Earth and Space Sciences at University of Science and Technology of China (No. KY2080009999). We appreciate the Supercomputing Center of USTC for high-performance computing services.
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All authors contributed to the manuscript. M.D. performed the data processing, seismic inversion, and analysis. D.S. designed the project, supervised, provided guidance of analysis. C.Z., Z.M., and N.S. performed the mineral physics analysis. H.B. provided discussion. M.D. and D.S. wrote the original draft. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.
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Dai, M., Sun, D., Zhao, C. et al. Partially melted low velocity zones reveal an active upper mantle beneath Elysium Planitia, Mars. Nat Commun (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72209-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-72209-x
