Estimating Erosional Exhumation on Titan from Drainage Network Morphology

Details Estimating Erosional Exhumation on Titan from Drainage Network Morphology Estimating Erosional Exhumation on Titan from Drainage Network Morphology

Dec 2011

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2011agufm.p33e1796p&link_type=abstract

American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2011, abstract #P33E-1796

Mathematics

Logic

[5419] Planetary Sciences: Solid Surface Planets / Hydrology And Fluvial Processes, [6281] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Titan

Scientific paper

Drainage networks on Titan, Earth, and Mars provide the only known examples of non-volcanic fluvial activity in our solar system. The networks on Titan are apparently the result of a methane cycle similar to Earth's water cycle. The scarcity of impact craters, especially in the northern polar regions, and the uneven distribution of fluvial dissection on Titan suggest that large areas of the satellite's surface may be relatively young. Cryovolcanism, tectonic deformation, deposition of organic aerosols and erosional exhumation all provide plausible mechanisms for resurfacing, but determining which process has been dominant is a key question for deciphering Titan's geologic history. Drainage networks are one of the most visible indicators of methane-driven modification of Titan's surface, but with little topographic information and few constraints on the rate or duration of fluvial erosion, it is unclear how extensively the drainage networks have altered Titan's landscape. We present a method for using drainage network morphology to estimate the amount of exhumation due to erosional dissection of an initial surface. The method utilizes the width function, which is a metric of the areal distribution of a network, in order to track changes in the shape of drainage networks as they incise. We find systematic trends in the width function of drainage networks over the course of drainage development. We calibrate this method by applying it to a numerical landscape evolution model, and test the method by applying it to drainage networks on Earth with different exhumation histories. We then apply it to drainage networks on Titan to estimate the amount of exhumation in various regions imaged by the Cassini spacecraft. We mapped fluvial networks in all Synthetic Aperture Radar swaths obtained by Cassini up through T71. Application of our method to the largest and most completely imaged drainage networks provides probable upper and lower bounds on the erosional modification produced by some of Titan's fluvial networks. Overall, these networks appear to have driven relatively little erosion, which implies either a recent resurfacing event and/or long-term fluvial incision rates that are slow relative to the rate of resurfacing.

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