Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40453641›Full record

ArticleNational science review2025

Seismic evidence of liquid water at the base of Mars' upper crust.

Weijia Sun, Hrvoje Tkalčić, Marco G Malusà, Yongxin Pan

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in National science review, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 2 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
2citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

2 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Review
  2. Reply to Xiao et al.: A wet or dry Martian mid-crust, that is only part of the question.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025
    Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Weijia SunKey Laboratory of Planetary Science and Frontier Technology, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9530-8558
Hrvoje TkalčićResearch School of Earth Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7072-490X
Marco G MalusàDepartment of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan 20126, Italy.
Yongxin PanKey Laboratory of Planetary Science and Frontier Technology, Institute of Geology and Geophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Liquid water was abundant on Mars during the Noachian and Hesperian periods but vanished as the planet transitioned into the cold, dry environment we see today. It is hypothesized that much of this water was either lost to space or stored in the crust. However, the extent of the water reservoir within the crust remains poorly constrained due to a lack of observational evidence. Here, we invert the shear wave velocity structure of the upper crust, identifying a significant low-velocity layer at the base, between depths of 5.4 and 8 km. This zone is interpreted as a high-porosity, water-saturated layer, and is estimated to hold a liquid water volume of 520-780 m of global equivalent layer (GEL). This estimate aligns well with the remaining liquid water volume of 710-920 m GEL, after accounting for water loss to space, crustal hydration and modern water inventory.

Indexed as

liquid waterlow-velocity zoneMarsreceiver function inversionupper crust

Identifiers

PMID40453641
PMCPMC12125978

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.