Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Oct 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002phdt........35s&link_type=abstract
Thesis (PhD). BROWN UNIVERSITY, Source DAI-B 63/04, p. 1754, Oct 2002, 320 pages.
Mathematics
Logic
3
Scientific paper
The likelihood of an ocean within Jupiter's icy moon Europa has generated great interest in depth to the ocean and thus the nature of the overlying ice shell. Our work has consisted of a comprehensive approach to understanding Europa's ice shell and the geological processes that form lineae, chaos, and lenticulae within it. By mapping and analysis of the morphology and orientation of lineae, we found that lineae can be created by tension cracking or shear failure followed by linear diapirism and frictional heating through shear. We mapped lenticulae and chaos features in order to assess their morphology, stratigraphy, size, spacing, and areal distribution. Chaos and lenticulae were determined to be stratigraphically young within the studied areas. The morphology and stratigraphy of lenticulae and chaos is consistent with solid-state convection within the asthenosphere driving thermal diapirism. There is a dominant 4 8 km equivalent circular diameter of micro-chaos lenticulae and chaos and the spacing distribution suggests a dominant mean center-to-center spacing distance of 16 36 km, suggesting that ordered convection cells occur within an icy asthenosphere 7 18 km thick. We created a geochemical model considering MgSO4 hydrated salts within the Europan ice shell and ocean. The model allows for thermal and compositional diapirism within an ice shell thickening with time. The analysis of chaos, lenticulae, and lineae supports a diapiric model and suggests that Europa had a thin ice shell dominated by tectonism that subsequently conductively thickened. Upon reading a critical value, solid-state convection occurred within a ductile layer >7 thick, generating diapirs of similar sizes and spacing within a stratigraphically similar geological epoch. Processes such as partial melting, subsidence, frost removal, brine drainage, and disaggregation of the surface can account for the texture and low albedo of material involved in the formation of chaos and lenticulae. Consequentially, our work suggests that Europa has a thick ice shell, >7 km thick, that allows surface-to-ocean communications through rising diapiric plumes, drainage of denser salts through brine mobilization, and partial melting; such communication is favorable for astrobiological possibilities.
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