A pair of marsquakes linked to Cerberus Fossae may have shaken boulders down its cliffsides, NASA said in 2020. But the evidence does not show a particular quake moving a named rock: it is a plausible explanation for signs of shaking in a region with young tectonic features.
What NASA said about the rocks
Cerberus Fossae is a region of fractures and young lava flows on Mars. In a 2020 first-year account of the InSight mission, NASA said two quakes were strongly linked to the area and that boulders there may have been shaken down cliffsides. The wording matters: NASA described a possible explanation, not a recorded rockfall or a confirmed movement date.
NASA planetary geologist Matt Golombek said the evidence of shaking in the region was not surprising given its young tectonic features, but was “very cool.” His comment was about signs of shaking in Cerberus Fossae, not confirmation that a particular quake moved a particular boulder.
How InSight detected marsquakes
NASA’s InSight lander used its Seismic Experiment for Interior Structure (SEIS) instrument to detect seismic signals at the Martian surface. NASA announced the first likely marsquake signal on April 6, 2019, describing it as faint and apparently coming from inside Mars while scientists continued investigating its cause. That early signal should not be confused with the later regional interpretation about boulders in Cerberus Fossae.
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Mars does not have Earth’s moving tectonic plates, but its crust can accumulate stress as the planet cools and contracts. Seismic signals can also come from meteoroid impacts, so a detected signal is not automatically evidence of an internally generated quake.
Why the impact evidence changes the picture
In a 2025 report, NASA described a fresh impact crater in Cerberus Fossae that was correlated with seismic shaking recorded by InSight. The crater is 71 feet (21.5 meters) in diameter and the impact region is about 1,019 miles (1,640 kilometers) from the lander. Those figures describe the crater and its distance—not the boulders discussed in the 2020 account.
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NASA called this the first fresh impact correlated with shaking detected in this especially quake-prone region. The finding shows why scientists need to distinguish impact-generated signals from quakes originating within Mars: some activity previously attributed to internal quakes may instead have been caused by impacts. InSight team member Constantinos Charalambous described a faster wave route through the mantle as a “seismic highway”; that observation concerns how impact-generated waves travel, not the original boulder interpretation.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the mission established—and what it did not
The two relevant reports describe different kinds of evidence: a 2020 plausible link between quakes and boulders in Cerberus Fossae, and a later correlation between an impact crater and seismic shaking. Neither establishes that a recorded quake was observed moving a specific boulder. NASA’s published account does not provide individual boulder measurements or a definitive movement date.
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InSight operated for four years and was retired in 2022. NASA’s later mission retrospective says it detected more than 1,300 marsquakes. NASA estimated the May 4, 2022 event at magnitude 5, the largest quake then detected on another planet.
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NASA reports
- NASA JPL’s 2020 first-year account of InSight’s seismic signals and Cerberus Fossae
- NASA’s announcement of the first likely marsquake signal
- NASA JPL’s report on the Cerberus Fossae impact and seismic shaking
- NASA JPL’s report on InSight’s largest detected quake
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