Physics
Scientific paper
Oct 1999
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1999icar..141..287h&link_type=abstract
Icarus, Volume 141, Issue Icarus, pp. 287-298.
Physics
66
Scientific paper
Diurnal tides due to orbital eccentricity may drive strike-slip motion on Europa through a process of ``walking'' in which faults open and close out of phase with alternate right- and left-lateral shear. Mapping of five different regions on Europa has revealed 121 strike-slip faults, including Astypalaea Linea, a 800-km-long fault with 42 km of right-lateral offset. At high southern latitudes near Astypalaea Linea all of the strike slip faults identified were right-lateral. Europa appears to preferentially form right-lateral faults in the southern hemisphere and left-lateral faults in the northern hemisphere, consistent with tidal walking. At the five locations, nonsynchronous rotation explains the azimuthal orientations and distribution of sense of shear, which fit formation ~60 deg to 90 deg west of their current positions. Alternatively, stress due to differential rotation might also explain the observed shear patterns. Nearly all identified strike-slip faults were associated with double ridges or bands, but few were detected along ridgeless cracks (even older ones). Thus, cracks without ridges may not have penetrated to a decoupling layer, consistent with the models for ridge formation that require cracks to penetrate to a liquid water ocean.
Geissler Paul
Greenberg Richard
Hoppa Gregory
Randall Tufts B.
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