QUOTE (BruceMoomaw @ Feb 4 2006, 08:15 AM)
I thought they were absolutely certain that the Hellas impact occurred after the dynamo shut down, which is why the Hellas Basin floor wasn't remagnetized afterwards.
With the caveat that no one is "absolutely certain" about anything on Mars, the prevailing view, based on the MGS MAG/ER signatures over Hellas and the surrounding region, is that the core dynamo ceased before basin emplacement.
Having said that, however, in addition to Lillis
et al. speculating about a "second dynamo,"
Schubert et al. [2000] posit something similar: a longer term dynamo (extending post-Hellas). Indeed, the latter state, "There is no unambiguous constraint on the dynamo turn-off time other than its absence at present."