Martian seismicity through time from surface faulting

An objective of future Mars missions involves emplacing a seismic network on Mars to determine the internal structure of the planet. An argument based on the relative geologic histories of the terrestrial planets suggests that Mars should be seismically more active than the Moon, but less active than the Earth. The seismicity is estimated which is expected on Mars through time from slip on faults visible on the planets surface. These estimates of martian seismicity must be considered a lower limit as only structures produced by shear faulting visible at the surface today are included (i.e., no provision is made for buried structures or non-shear structures); in addition, the estimate does not include seismic events that do not produce surface displacement (e.g., activity associated with hidden faults, deep lithospheric processes or volcanism) or events produced by tidal triggering or meteorite impacts. Calibration of these estimates suggests that Mars may be many times more seismically active than the Moon.