Mechanics of tidally driven fractures in Europa's ice shell

Details Mechanics of tidally driven fractures in Europa's ice shell Mechanics of tidally driven fractures in Europa's ice shell

Oct 2005

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2005icar..177..367l&link_type=abstract

Icarus, Volume 177, Issue 2, p. 367-379.

Physics

13

Scientific paper

A fracture mechanics model is developed for the initiation and propagation of a crack through a porous ice layer of finite thickness under gravitational overburden. It is found that surface cracks generated in response to a tidally induced stress field may penetrate through the entire outer brittle layer if a subsurface ocean is present on Europa. Such penetration is found to be very unlikely in the absence of an ocean. A cycloidal crack would then form as a sequence of near instantaneous discrete failures, each extending roughly the brittle layer thickness in range, linked with a much lower apparent propagation speed set by the moving tidal stress field. The implications of this porous ice fracture model for ice-penetrating radar scattering loss and seismic activity are quantified.

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