Via
New Scientist:
http://space.newscientist.com/articl...tectonics.html
Quote:
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..after modelling geological processes on planets of various sizes. They found that as planetary mass increases, more heat is trapped and convection increases. As a result the shear stress within the crust increases too and plate thickness decreases. That means the plates are weaker and plate tectonics becomes "inevitable". Our own planet seems to lie at the threshold. If it were any less massive, it would probably not be geologically active.
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The original paper is here:
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/0710.0699v1
How then does Martian vulcanism fit into this model?
Also, as a recent paper hypothesized that vulcanism was responsible for much of the early increase in O2 in the atmosphere, would these results imply that life-forms like us are restricted to planets of ~Earth mass or above?
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I don't know. That's why I'm asking--
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