Mathematics – Logic
Scientific paper
Dec 2006
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2006agufm.p42b..03k&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2006, abstract #P42B-03
Mathematics
Logic
5422 Ices, 5460 Physical Properties Of Materials
Scientific paper
The tectonic, volcanic, and some other important types of geologic activity of solid planetary objects arises mainly from the differential partitioning and transport of thermal energy that produces rheological structures, density inversions, and unequilibrated pressure/stress gradients, thereby causing conditions that are prone to advective mass transfers and restabilization of stress conditions. The composition of icy satellites and solid planets determines the material properties of the condensed materials, and thus their physical responses to heating and virtually all geological processes. Many key mechanical and thermodynamic properties (e.g., melting temperature, effective viscosity, and thermal conductivity) vary across orders of magnitude among the volatile ices, silicates, metals, liquid solutions, gases, and other substances making up icy satellites. Given this wide range of material properties, it is easy to understand why there is so much variability in the appearance and geologic processes of icy satellites. However, another striking discovery are some key geological/morphological similarities among many satellites. There may be three explanations for their similar appearances. (1) Dissimilar materials and dissimilar satellite attributes and conditions may give rise to dissimilar features that merely appear to be similar but are actually produced by very different processes. (2) The icy satellites are actually made of very similar materials and have responded with roughly similar processes to make similar features. (3) The icy satellites are made of dissimilar materials and operate under disparate conditions, but nevertheless many of them tend to exhibit similar geological/geophysical processes so long as they are heated sufficiently. Examples may be cited that seem consistent with each of these explanations. Theoretical understanding and modeling of satellite differentiation, cryovolcanism, solid state diapirism, magnetic field induction, and other geologic and geophysical processes depends on adequate laboratory measurements of the physical and thermodynamic properties of ices, salts, silicates, brines, gases, and other materials making up icy satellites. Examples of existing measurements of solid/liquid phase equilibria, gas solubility in aqueous solutions, thermal conductivity of solids, and rheology of aqueous solutions, ices, and salts are shown, and theoretical applications to problems of cryovolcanism and tectonism on Enceladus and Titan are given. These applications, and comparisons to silicate systems controlling much about the geology of the terrestrial planets, suggest that the third explanation above may be a key to understanding strangely familiar landscapes on Titan and Enceladus. An insufficiency in our laboratory data and our compositional knowledge of icy satellites limits our understanding of those worlds.
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