Crater relaxation as a probe of Europa's interior

Details Crater relaxation as a probe of Europa's interior Crater relaxation as a probe of Europa's interior

Mar 1986

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1986jgr....91..453t&link_type=abstract

(Lunar and Planetary Institute, NASA, American Geophysical Union, et al., Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, 16th, Houston,

Physics

24

Europa, Planetary Craters, Planetary Geology, Planetary Structure, Relaxation Time, Finite Element Method, Lithosphere, Regolith, Viscosity

Scientific paper

Viscous relaxation rates of craters are examined to discriminate among models of Europa's interior, and it is shown that the presence of an insulating surface regolith is required for ice lithospheres that do not contain a liquid H2O layer. Without these surfaces, relaxation times for craters of 100 km in diameter are excessively long and thus inconsistent with the absence of such features in Voyager images. Finite element calculations indicate that a thick insulating surface frost layer allows a 25-km-thick surface viscous layer to relax greater-than-or-equal-to 100-km-diameter craters on the short timescales required. If the icy lithosphere is 100 km thick, and devoid of a liquid H2O layer (but containing a subsolidus convecting region), surface temperatures need to be raised 20 K by insulation to allow relaxation of craters in this size range to occur within the required time.

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