Is Io's Mantle Really Molten ?

Physics

Scientific paper

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5430 Interiors (8147), 6218 Jovian Satellites, 8121 Dynamics, Convection Currents And Mantle Plumes

Scientific paper

The tidal deformation responsible for the intense volcanic activity at the Io's surface, dissipates a prodigious amount of heat in Io's interior. The averaged surface heat flux is 2.5W/m2. In order to extract heat by magma through isolated vents, we have introduced an open boundary condition at the top surface, in both spherical and cartesian models of convection with pure internal heating. We find that the averaged temperature Rayleigh number relationship follows a power law function with an exponent of -0.5 instead of -0.25 with an impermeable boundary condition. This suggests that Io's mantle is mainly solid for a Rayleigh number between 106 and 108, and that melting occurs only at the base of the mantle and inside plumes. Hot plumes are the only consequence of a permeable boundary and are not observed in the classical case of impermeable boundary and pure internal heating. Even if, plumes are more easily reliable to the hot spots observed at Io'surface, their number in the model is in agreement with the observation only when the convective layer thickness does not exceed 200km, suggesting a two layer mode of convection or a convection restricted to the crust. In order to investigate the possible convection modes established in the crust, we have developed a two layers model of convection, in a cartesian framework, where a 150km thick crust overlies the mantle. the top boundary is permeable and a free slip boundary condition is imposed at the crust-mantle boundary. The internal heating is concentrated in the mantle. We find for a Rayleigh number in the crust of 107, that the crust is globally solid and only molten in a greater number of plumes, and the mantle beneath is partially molten.

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