Degassing of volcanic extrusives on Mercury: Potential contributions to transient atmospheres and buried polar deposits

The surface of Mercury is dominated by extensive, widespread lava plains that formed early in its history. The emplacement of these lavas was accompanied by the release of magmatic volatiles, the bulk of which were lost to space via thermal escape and/or photodissociation. Here we consider the fate of these erupted volatiles by quantifying the volumes of erupted volcanic plains and estimating the associated masses of erupted volatiles. The concentrations and speciation of volatiles in Mercury's magmas are not known with certainty at this time, so we model a wide range of cases, based on existing experimental data and speciation models, at 3-7 log fO(2) units below conditions determined by the iron-wustite buffer. Cases range from relatively low gas content scenarios (total exsolved gas mass of 9 x10(15) kg) to high gas content scenarios (total exsolved gas = 5 x 10(19) kg). We estimate that the average duration of a transient volcanic atmosphere resulting from a single eruption would be between similar to 250 and similar to 210,000 years, depending on the volume, degassed volatile content, and eruption rate of an individual eruption, as well as the fO(2) conditions of the planet's interior. If a dense transient atmosphere was ever surface-bound long enough for the released volatiles to be transported to and cold-trapped at Mercury's polar regions, those trapped volatiles are predicted to be well-mixed with the regolith, and at least 16 m beneath the surface given regolith gardening rates. These volatiles would have a composition and age distinctly different from those of the H2O-ice deposits observed at the poles of Mercury today. (C) 2021 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

The fate of erupted volatile on Mercury is considered in this study, with estimates of duration of transient volcanic atmosphere ranging from about 250 to 210,000 years, depending on various factors such as volume, degassed volatile content, eruption rate, and planetary interior conditions.