Exploring the subsurface structure and stratification of Mars advances our understanding of Martian geology, hydrological evolution and palaeoclimatic changes, and has been a main task for past and continuing Mars exploration missions^1–10. Utopia Planitia, the smooth plains of volcanic and sedimentary strata that infilled the Utopia impact crater, has been a prime target for such exploration as it is inferred to have hosted an ancient ocean on Mars^11–13. However, 45 years have passed since Viking-2 provided ground-based detection results. Here we report an in situ ground-penetrating radar survey of Martian subsurface structure in a southern marginal area of Utopia Planitia conducted by the Zhurong rover of the Tianwen-1 mission. A detailed subsurface image profile is constructed along the roughly 1,171 m traverse of the rover, showing an approximately 70-m-thick, multi-layered structure below a less than 10-m-thick regolith. Although alternative models deserve further scrutiny, the new radar image suggests the occurrence of episodic hydraulic flooding sedimentation that is interpreted to represent the basin infilling of Utopia Planitia during the Late Hesperian to Amazonian. While no direct evidence for the existence of liquid water was found within the radar detection depth range, we cannot rule out the presence of saline ice in the subsurface of the landing area.

This article aims at numerically simulating the 3D seismic wave propagation from rupture to structures. A two-step method coupling the spectral element method (SEM) and the finite-element method (FEM) is proposed based on the domain reduction method to simultaneously simulate the seismic wave propagation in large-scale regions and analyze the dynamic behavior of structures in local sites. First, the concept of the proposed two-step method is illustrated. In the first step, the seismic wave propagation of the entire area, involving the source, propagation media, and local region of interest, is simulated using the SEM. In the second step, the dynamic analysis of structure-foundation system with local geological and topographical conditions is implemented using the FEM in a fine mesh based on the results in the first step. Subsequently, the FEM grid size is evaluated to match the SEM results, and the proposed SEM–FEM procedure is verified using both point-source and finite-fault model in a layered flat model. Finally, two analysis examples are presented using the proposed procedure. The analysis results show that the proposed SEM–FEM procedure can well consider the effects of local geological and topographical conditions on synthesized ground motions and can be applied to the rupture-to-structure simulations in earthquake engineering.

As the largest basin on Mars, Utopia Planitia has both experienced and recorded variations of the Martian palaeoclimate. Layered subsurface structures have been identified by ground-penetrating radar in southern Utopia Planitia but lateral variations of the subsurface, potentially linked to the Martian palaeoclimatic evolution, have not been investigated. Here we report the lateral frequency-variation patterns of Zhurong radar reflections and interpret them as buried polygonal terrain below a depth of 35 m. Sixteen polygonal wedges were identified within ∼1.2 km distance, suggesting a wide distribution of such terrain under Utopia Planitia. The contrast above and below ∼35 m depth represents a notable transformation of aqueous activity or thermal conditions in the Late Hesperian–Early Amazonian. The interpreted buried polygons, possibly generated by freeze–thaw cycles, imply that there was a strong palaeoclimatic variability at low-to-mid latitudes (∼25° N), potentially due to the high obliquity of ancient Mars.

The domain reduction method based on the finite-element method (FEM) is promising for multiscale seismic wave simulations for local complex structures and rough topography. However, a transition region is required to refine the wavefields from coarse to fine grids, which may lead to strong artifacts. Traditional wavefield interpolation methods can only handle a small upsampling ratio due to their low accuracy. Here, we propose a high accuracy upsampling method using Fourier interpolation and boundary extrapolation. It requires that the wavefield in the transition region is evenly sampled, which may slightly reduce the flexibility of FEMs. Fortunately, this constraint only exists in two layers of nodes, in which the coarse and fine grids are collocated. To further apply our interpolation method to the wavefield upsampling on the nonuniform grid, we adopt cubic interpolation within the local region of interest, which is adequate in accuracy for regularizing the wavefield on the fine nonuniform grid. For a topographic surface, we perform wavefield extrapolation on the ground surface to avoid abnormal amplitude variations below and beyond the surface, which can greatly reduce potential artifacts caused by the Fourier interpolation. Numerical experiments find that our method is superior to traditional interpolation methods in accuracy, especially for large upsampling ratios. Its relative error is less than 2% even for a 40-time upsampling; in contrast, the relative error of linear and cubic interpolation is up to 90% and 41% in the same situation, respectively. We further verify the feasibility of our method for 3D heterogeneous models with rough topography, multilayer heterogeneity, and random perturbations of background models. The proposed method yields a significant speeding of the multiscale seismic simulation using the FEM for 3D models with complex local structures and topographies while being highly accurate.