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1.
The Cassini Titan Radar Mapper obtained Synthetic Aperture Radar images of Titan's surface during four fly-bys during the mission's first year. These images show that Titan's surface is very complex geologically, showing evidence of major planetary geologic processes, including cryovolcanism. This paper discusses the variety of cryovolcanic features identified from SAR images, their possible origin, and their geologic context. The features which we identify as cryovolcanic in origin include a large (180 km diameter) volcanic construct (dome or shield), several extensive flows, and three calderas which appear to be the source of flows. The composition of the cryomagma on Titan is still unknown, but constraints on rheological properties can be estimated using flow thickness. Rheological properties of one flow were estimated and appear inconsistent with ammonia-water slurries, and possibly more consistent with ammonia-water-methanol slurries. The extent of cryovolcanism on Titan is still not known, as only a small fraction of the surface has been imaged at sufficient resolution. Energetic considerations suggest that cryovolcanism may have been a dominant process in the resurfacing of Titan.  相似文献   

2.
Cassini-Huygens observations have shown that Titan and Enceladus are geologically active icy satellites. Mitri and Showman [Mitri, G., Showman, A.P., 2005. Icarus 177, 447-460] and McKinnon [McKinnon, W.B., 2006. Icarus 183, 435-450] investigated the dynamics of an ice shell overlying a pure liquid-water ocean and showed that transitions from a conductive state to a convective state have major implications for the surface tectonics. We extend this analysis to the case of ice shells overlying ammonia-water oceans. We explore the thermal state of Titan and Enceladus ice-I shells, and also we investigate the consequences of the ice-I shell conductive-convective switch for the geology. We show that thermal convection can occur, under a range of conditions, in the ice-I shells of Titan and Enceladus. Because the Rayleigh number Ra scales with δ3/ηb, where δ is the thickness of the ice shell and ηb is the viscosity at the base of the ice-I shell, and because ammonia in the liquid layer (if any) strongly depresses the melting temperature of the water ice, Ra equals its critical value for two ice-I shell thicknesses: for relatively thin ice shell with warm, low-viscosity base (Onset I) and for thick ice shell with cold, high-viscosity base (Onset II). At Onset I, for a range of heat fluxes, two equilibrium states—corresponding to a thin, conductive shell and a thick, convective shell—exist for a given heat flux. Switches between these states can cause large, rapid changes in the ice-shell thickness. For Enceladus, we demonstrate that an Onset I transition can produce tectonic stress of ∼500 bars and fractures of several tens of km depth. At Onset II, in contrast, we demonstrate that zero equilibrium states exist for a range of heat fluxes. For a mean heat flux within this range, the satellite experiences oscillations in surface heat flux and satellite volume with periods of ∼50-800 Myr even when the interior heat production is constant or monotonically declining in time; these oscillations in the thermal state of the ice-I shell would cause repeated episodes of extensional and compressional tectonism.  相似文献   

3.
4.
We have conducted high-pressure experiments in the H2O-CH4 and H2O-CH4-NH3 systems in order to investigate the stability of methane clathrate hydrates, with an optical sapphire-anvil cell coupled to a Raman spectrometer for sample characterization. The results obtained confirm that three factors determine the stability of methane clathrate hydrates: (1) the bulk methane content of the samples; (2) the presence of additional gas compounds such as nitrogen; (3) the concentration of ammonia in the aqueous solution. We show that ammonia has a strong effect on the stability of methane clathrates. For example, a 10 wt.% NH3 solution decreases the dissociation temperature of methane clathrates by 14-25 K at pressures above 5 MPa. Then, we apply these new results to Titan’s conditions. Dissociation of methane clathrate hydrates and subsequent outgassing can only occur in Titan’s icy crust, in presence of locally large amounts of ammonia and in a warm context. We propose a model of cryomagma chamber within the crust that provides the required conditions for methane outgassing: emplacement of an ice plume triggers the melting (if solid) or heating (if liquid) of large ammonia-water pockets trapped at shallow depth, and the generated cryomagmas dissociate surrounding methane clathrate hydrates. We show that this model may allow for the outgassing of significant amounts of methane, which would be sufficient to maintain the presence of methane in Titan’s atmosphere for several tens of thousands of years after a large cryovolcanic event.  相似文献   

5.
All landforms on Titan that are unambiguously identifiable can be explained by exogenic processes (aeolian, fluvial, impact cratering, and mass wasting). Previous suggestions of endogenically produced cryovolcanic constructs and flows have, without exception, lacked conclusive diagnostic evidence. The modification of sparse recognizable impact craters (themselves exogenic) can be explained by aeolian and fluvial erosion. Tectonic activity could be driven by global thermal evolution or external forcing, rather than by active interior processes. A lack of cryovolcanism would be consistent with geophysical inferences of a relatively quiescent interior: incomplete differentiation, only minor tidal heating, and possibly a lack of internal convection today. Titan might be most akin to Callisto with weather: an endogenically relatively inactive world with a cool interior. We do not aim to disprove the existence of any and all endogenic activity at Titan, nor to provide definitive alternative hypotheses for all landforms, but instead to inject a necessary level of caution into the discussion. The hypothesis of Titan as a predominantly exogenic world can be tested through additional Cassini observations and analyses of putative cryovolcanic features, geophysical and thermal modeling of Titan’s interior evolution, modeling of icy satellite landscape evolution that is shaped by exogenic processes alone, and consideration of possible means for supplying Titan’s atmospheric constituents that do not rely on cryovolcanism.  相似文献   

6.
F. Nimmo  B.G. Bills 《Icarus》2010,208(2):896-904
The long-wavelength topography of Titan has an amplitude larger than that expected from tidal and rotational distortions at its current distance from Saturn. This topography is associated with small gravity anomalies, indicating a high degree of compensation. Both observations can be explained if Titan has a floating, isostatically-compensated ice shell with a spatially-varying thickness. The spatial variations arise because of laterally-variable tidal heating within the ice shell. Models incorporating shell thickness variations result in an improved fit to the observations and a degree-two tidal Love number h2t consistent with expectations, without requiring Titan to have moved away from Saturn. Our preferred models have a mean shell thickness of ≈100 km in agreement with the observed gravity anomalies, and a heat flux appropriate to a chondritic Titan. Shell thickness variations are eliminated by convection; we therefore conclude that Titan’s ice shell is not convecting at the present day.  相似文献   

7.
8.
We produced geologic maps from two regional mosaics of Galileo images across the leading and trailing hemispheres of Europa in order to investigate the temporal distribution of units in the visible geologic record. Five principal terrain types were identified (plains, bands, ridges, chaos, and crater materials), which are interpreted to result from (1) tectonic fracturing and lineament building, (2) cryovolcanic reworking of surface units, with possible emplacement of sub-surface materials, and (3) impact cratering. The geologic histories of both mapped areas are essentially similar and reflect some common trends: Tectonic resurfacing dominates the early geologic record with the formation of background plains by intricate superposition of lineaments, the opening of wide bands with infilling of inter-plate gaps, and the buildup of ridges and ridge complexes along prominent fractures in the ice. It also appears that lineaments are narrower and more widely spaced with time. The lack of impact craters overprinted by lineaments indicate that the degree of tectonic resurfacing decreased rapidly after ridged plains formation. In contrast, the degree of cryovolcanic resurfacing appears to increase with time, as chaos formation dominates the later parts of the geologic record. These trends, and the transition from tectonic- to cryovolcanic-dominated resurfacing could be attributed to the gradual thickening of Europa's cryosphere during the visible geologic history, that comprises the last 2% or 30-80 Myr of Europa's history: An originally thin, brittle ice shell could be pervasively fractured or melted through by tidal and endogenic processes; the degree of fracturing and plate displacements decreased with time in a thickening shell, and lineaments became narrower and more widely spaced; formation of chaos regions could have occurred where the thickness threshold for solid-state convection was exceeded, and can be aided by preferential tidal heating of more ductile ice. In a long-term context it is not clear at this point whether this inferred thickening trend would reflect a drastic change in the thermal evolution of the satellite, or cyclic or irregular episodes of tectonic and cryovolcanic activity.  相似文献   

9.
We model the chemical evolution of Titan, wherein primordial NH3 reacts with sulfate-rich brines leached from the silicate core during its hydration. The resulting differentiated body consists of a serpentinite core overlain by a high-pressure ice VI mantle, a liquid layer of aqueous ammonium sulfate, and a heterogeneous shell of methane clathrate, low-pressure ice Ih and solid ammonium sulfate. Cooling of the subsurface ocean results in underplating of the outer shell with ice Ih; this gravitationally unstable system can produce compositional plumes as ice Ih ascends buoyantly. Ice plumes may aid in advection of melt pockets through the shell and, in combination with surface topography, provide the necessary hydraulic pressure gradients to drive such melts to the surface. Moreover, contact between the magma and wall rock (methane clathrate) will allow some methane to dissolve in the magma, as well as eroding fragments of wall rock that can be transported as xenoliths. Upon rising to the clathrate decomposition depth (∼2 MPa, or 1700 m), the entrained xenoliths will break down to ice + methane gas, powering highly explosive eruptions with lava fountains up to several kilometers high. Hence we predict that Titan is being resurfaced by cryoclastic ash consisting of ice and ammonium sulfate (or its tetrahydrate), providing an abundance of sedimentary grains, a potential source of bedload for fluvial transport and erosion, and of sand-sized material for aeolian transport and dune-building. The infrared reflectance spectrum of ammonium sulfate makes it a plausible candidate for the 5 μm-bright material on Titan's surface.  相似文献   

10.
A number of synchronous moons are thought to harbor water oceans beneath their outer ice shells. A subsurface ocean frictionally decouples the shell from the interior. This has led to proposals that a weak tidal or atmospheric torque might cause the shell to rotate differentially with respect to the synchronously rotating interior. Applications along these lines have been made to Europa and Titan. However, the shell is coupled to the ocean by an elastic torque. As a result of centrifugal and tidal forces, the ocean would assume an ellipsoidal shape with its long axis aligned toward the parent planet. Any displacement of the shell away from its equilibrium position would induce strains thereby increasing its elastic energy and giving rise to an elastic restoring torque. In the investigation reported on here, the elastic torque is compared with the tidal torque acting on Europa and the atmospheric torque acting on Titan.Regarding Europa, it is shown that the tidal torque is far too weak to produce stresses that could fracture the ice shell, thus refuting an idea that has been widely advocated. Instead, it is suggested that the cracks arise from time-dependent stresses due to non-hydrostatic gravity anomalies from tidally driven, episodic convection in the satellite’s interior.Two years of Cassini RADAR observations of Titan’s surface have been interpreted as implying an angular displacement of ∼0.24° relative to synchronous rotation. Compatibility of the amplitude and phase of the observed non-synchronous rotation with estimates of the atmospheric torque requires that Titan’s shell be decoupled from its interior. We find that the elastic torque balances the seasonal atmospheric torque at an angular displacement ?0.05°, effectively coupling the shell to the interior. Moreover, if Titan’s surface were spinning faster than synchronous, the tidal torque tending to restore synchronous rotation would almost certainly be larger than the atmospheric torque. There must either be a problem with the interpretation of the radar observations, or with our basic understanding of Titan’s atmosphere and/or interior.  相似文献   

11.
《Icarus》1987,70(1):61-77
The origin of methane at the present surface of Titan is modeled in light of new high-pressure phase diagrams of ammonia-water compounds and clathrate hydrate. Using recently published experimental data on the ammonia-water system at kilobar pressures, temperature-composition slices of the phase diagram are constructed at a series of pressures up to 12 kbar. A new phase of ammonia dihydrate is proposed and incorporated in the diagrams, to allow consistency with low-pressure data. These results, along with the high-pressure phase diagram of methane clathrate hydrate recently caculated by J. I. Lunine and D. J. Stevenson (1985a, Astrophys. J. Suppl. 58, 493–531) are applied to a model for the origin of the methane presently on the surface of Titan. Using simple bounds on the accretional temperatures and postaccretional state of an ammonia-rich Titan, we show that an unstable interior configuration is likely immediately after accretion, in which a rock layer is positioned above a lower-density rock-ice core. When core overturns begins the methane in the core, which is released from the clathrate structure by virtue of the high pressures, migrates upward. A model for the cooling and freezing of an ammonia-water ocean in the upper mantle of Titan, based on the phase diagram, is applied and it is concluded that insufficient liquid water exists to retrap all of the upwelling methane as clathrate. However, alternative interpretations of the phase diagram permit an ocean thick enough to entrap the methane. For the bulk of the range of plausible accretion models, enough methane is available from the interior to account for the present-day surface hydrocarbon abundance; however, the amount of nitrogen extruded in this model may be much smaller.  相似文献   

12.
The Cassini spacecraft has revealed landforms on the surface of Titan suggested to be viscous cryovolcanic flows and possibly eruptive domes. In order to relate those surface features to the processes and chemistries that produced them, it is necessary to construct flow models, which rely on characterization of the rheological properties of the eruptants. This paper describes our initial exploratory attempts to understand the rheological characteristics of cryogenic slurries, using a 40% methanol-water mixture, as a precursor to more detailed experiments. We have devised a new automated cryogenic rotational viscometer system to more fully characterize cryovolcanic slurry rheologies. A series of measurements were performed, varying first temperature, and then strain rate, which revealed development of yield stress-like behaviors, shear-rate dependence, and thixotropic behavior, even at relatively low crystal fractions, not previously reported. At fixed shear rate our data are fit well by the Andrade equation, with the activation energy modified by a solid volume fraction. At fixed temperature, depending on shearing history, a Cross model could describe our data over a wide shear rate range. A Bingham plastic model appears to be a good constitutive model for the data measured at high shear rates when the shear was global. The yield stress like behavior implies that levee formation on cryolava flows is more likely than would be inferred from the previous studies, and may provide a partial explanation for features interpreted as steep-sided volcanic constructs on Titan.  相似文献   

13.
Titan's bulk density along with Solar System formation models indicates considerable water as well as silicates as its major constituents. This satellite's dense atmosphere of nitrogen with methane is unique. Deposits or even oceans of organic compounds have been suggested to exist on Titan's solid surface due to UV-induced photochemistry in the atmosphere. Thus, the composition of the surface is a major piece of evidence needed to determine Titan's history. However, studies of the surface are hindered by the thick, absorbing, hazy and in some places cloudy atmosphere. Ground-based telescope investigations of the integral disk of Titan attempted to observe the surface albedo in spectral windows between methane absorptions by calculating and removing the haze effects. Their results were reported to be consistent with water ice on the surface that is contaminated with a small amount of dark material, perhaps organic material like tholin. We analyze here the recent Cassini Mission's visual and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIMS) observations that resolve regions on Titan. VIMS is able to see surface features and shows that there are spectral and therefore likely compositional units. By several methods, spectral albedo estimates within methane absorption windows between 0.75 and 5 μm were obtained for different surface units using VIMS image cubes from the Cassini-Huygens Titan Ta encounter. Of the spots studied, there appears to be two compositional classes present that are associated with the lower albedo and the higher albedo materials, with some variety among the brighter regions. These were compared with spectra of several different candidate materials. Our results show that the spectrum of water ice contaminated with a darker material matches the reflectance of the lower albedo Titan regions if the spectral slope from 2.71 to 2.79 μm in the poorly understood 2.8-μm methane window is ignored. The spectra for brighter regions are not matched by the spectrum of water ice or unoxidized tholin, in pure form or in mixtures with sufficient ice or tholin present to allow the water ice or tholin spectral features to be discerned. We find that the 2.8-μm methane absorption window is complex and seems to consist of two weak subwindows at 2.7 and 2.8 μm that have unknown opacities. A ratio image at these two wavelengths reveals an anomalous region on Titan that has a reflectance unlike any material so far identified, but it is unclear how much the reflectances in these two subwindows pertain to the surface.  相似文献   

14.
William B. McKinnon 《Icarus》2006,183(2):435-450
It has been argued that the dominant non-Newtonian creep mechanisms of water ice make the ice shell above Callisto's ocean, and by inference all radiogenically heated ice I shells in the outer Solar System, stable against solid-state convective overturn. Conductive heat transport and internal melting (oceans) are therefore predicted to be, or have been, widespread among midsize and larger icy satellites and Kuiper Belt objects. Alternatively, at low stresses (where non-Newtonian viscosities can be arbitrarily large), convective instabilities may arise in the diffusional creep regime for arbitrarily small temperature perturbations. For Callisto, ice viscosities are low enough that convection is expected over most of geologic time above the internal liquid layer for plausible ice grain sizes (?a few mm); the alternative for early Callisto, a conducting shell over a very deep ocean (>450 km), is not compatible with Callisto's present partially differentiated state. Moreover, if convection is occurring today, the stagnant lid would be quite thick (∼100 km) and compatible with the lack of active geology. Nevertheless, Callisto's steady-state heat flow may have fallen below the convective minimum for its ice I shell late in Solar System history. In this case convection ends, the ice shell melts back at its base, and the internal ocean widens considerably. The presence of such an ocean, of order 200 km thick, is compatible with Callisto's moment-of-inertia, but its formation would have caused an ∼0.25% radial expansion. The tectonic effects of such a late, slow expansion are not observed, so convection likely persists in Callisto, possibly subcritically. Ganymede, due to its greater size, rock fraction and full differentiation, has a substantially higher heat flow than Callisto and has not reached this tectonic end state. Titan, if differentiated, and Triton should be more similar to Ganymede in this regard. Pluto, like Callisto, may be near the tipping point for convective shutdown, but uncertainties in its size and rock fraction prevent a more definitive assessment.  相似文献   

15.
Cassini radar observations show that Titan's spin is slightly faster than synchronous spin. Angular momentum exchange between Titan's surface and the atmosphere over seasonal time scales corresponding to Saturn's orbital period of 29.5 year is the most likely cause of the observed non-synchronous rotation. We study the effect of Saturn's gravitational torque and torques between internal layers on the length-of-day (LOD) variations driven by the atmosphere. Because static tides deform Titan into an ellipsoid with the long axis approximately in the direction to Saturn, non-zero gravitational and pressure torques exist that can change the rotation rate of Titan. For the torque calculation, we estimate the flattening of Titan and its interior layers under the assumption of hydrostatic equilibrium. The gravitational forcing by Saturn, due to misalignment of the long axis of Titan with the line joining the mass centers of Titan and Saturn, reduces the LOD variations with respect to those for a spherical Titan by an order of magnitude. Internal gravitational and pressure coupling between the ice shell and the interior beneath a putative ocean tends to reduce any differential rotation between shell and interior and reduces further the LOD variations by a few times. For the current estimate of the atmospheric torque, we obtain LOD variations of a hydrostatic Titan that are more than 100 times smaller than the observations indicate when Titan has no ocean as well as when a subsurface ocean exists. Moreover, Saturn's torque causes the rotation to be slower than synchronous in contrast to the Cassini observations. The calculated LOD variations could be increased if the atmospheric torque is larger than predicted and or if fast viscous relaxation of the ice shell could reduce the gravitational coupling, but it remains to be studied if a two order of magnitude increase is possible and if these effects can explain the phase difference of the predicted rotation variations. Alternatively, the large differences with the observations may suggest that non-hydrostatic effects in Titan are important. In particular, we show that the amplitude and phase of the calculated rotation variations are similar to the observed values if non-hydrostatic effects could strongly reduce the equatorial flattening of the ice shell above an internal ocean.  相似文献   

16.
Sediment transport by surficial flow likely occurs on Titan. Titan is thought to have a volatile cycle, such as on Earth and likely in the past on Mars, which would entail surficial liquid flow. And surficial flow is implied in interpretations of Cassini-Hyugens data as showing fluvial channels, which would require sediment transport by surficial flow to form the observable features. We present calculations from basic hydraulic formulae of sediment entrainment and transport by surficial flow. First, we describe the conditions for (non-cohesive) sediment entrainment by grain size through use of the Shields' threshold curve. We then calculate settling velocities by grain size to describe the type of sediment transport—washload, suspended load, or bedload—that would follow entrainment. These calculations allow derivation of required flow depths for sediment transport by grain size over a given slope. A technique to estimate required flow velocities and unit discharges is also presented. We show the results of these calculations for organic and water ice sediment movement by liquid methane flow under Titan gravity. For comparative purposes, plots for movement of quartz sediment by water on Earth and basalt sediment by water on Mars are also included. These results indicate that (non-cohesive) material would move more easily on Titan than on Earth or Mars. Terrestrial field observations suggest that coarse grain transport is enhanced by hyperconcentration of fine-grained sediment; and the apparent availability of organic (fine grained) sediment on Titan, in conjunction with the possibility of convection-driven rainstorms, may lead to hyperconcentrated flows. Thus, significant sediment transport may occur on Titan during individual overland flow events.  相似文献   

17.
Titan’s enigmatic Xanadu province has been seen in some detail with instruments from the Cassini spacecraft. The region contains some of the most rugged, mountainous terrain on Titan, with relief over 2000 m. Xanadu contains evolved and integrated river channels, impact craters, and dry basins filled with smooth, radar-dark material, perhaps sediments from past lake beds. Arcuate and aligned mountain chains give evidence of compressional tectonism, yet the overall elevation of Xanadu is puzzlingly low compared to surrounding sand seas. Lineations associated with mountain fronts and valley floors give evidence of extension that probably contributed to this regional lowering. Several locations on Xanadu’s western and southern margins contain flow-like features that may be cryovolcanic in origin, perhaps ascended from lithospheric faults related to regional downdropping late in its history. Radiometry and scatterometry observations are consistent with a water-ice or water-ammonia-ice composition to its exposed, eroded, fractured bedrock; both microwave and visible to near-infrared (v-nIR) data indicate a thin overcoating of organics, likely derived from the atmosphere. We suggest Xanadu is one of the oldest terrains on Titan and that its origin and evolution have been controlled and shaped by compressional and then extensional tectonism in the icy crust and ongoing erosion by methane rainfall.  相似文献   

18.
We consider the scenario in which the presence of ammonia in the bulk composition of Enceladus plays a pivotal role in its thermochemical evolution. Because ammonia reduces the melting temperature of the ice shell by 100 K below that of pure water ice, small amounts of tidal dissipation can power an “ammonia feedback” mechanism that leads to secondary differentiation of Enceladus within the ice shell. This leads to compositionally distinct zones at the base of the ice shell arranged such that a layer of lower density (and compositionally buoyant) pure water ice underlies the undifferentiated ammonia-dihydrate ice layer above. We then consider a large scale instability arising from the pure water ice layer, and use a numerical model to explore the dynamics of compositional convection within the ice shell of Enceladus. The instability of the layer can easily account for a diapir that is hemispherical in scale. As it rises to the surface, it co-advects the warm internal temperatures towards the outer layers of the satellite. This advected heat facilitates the generation of a subsurface ocean within the ice shell of Enceladus. This scenario can simultaneously account for the origin of asymmetry in surface deformation observed on Enceladus as well as two global features inferred to exist: a large density anomaly within the interior and a subsurface ocean underneath the south polar region.  相似文献   

19.
Laboratory tholins react rapidly in 13 wt% ammonia-water at low temperature, producing complex organic molecules containing both oxygen and altered nitrogen functional groups. These reactions display first-order kinetics with half-lives between 0.3 and 14 days at 253 K. The reaction timescales are much shorter than the freezing timescales of impact melts and volcanic sites on Titan, providing ample time for the formation of oxygenated, possibly prebiotic, molecules on its surface. Comparing the rates of the hydrolysis reactions in ammonia-water to those measured in pure water [Neish, C.D, Somogyi, A., Imanaka, H., Lunine, J.I., Smith, M.A., 2008a. Astrobiology 8, 273-287], we find that incorporation of oxygen into the tholins is faster in the presence of ammonia. The rate increases could be due to the increased pH of the solution, or to the availability of new reaction pathways made possible by the presence of ammonia. Using labeled 15NH3 water, we find that ammonia does incorporate into some products, and that the reactions with ammonia are largely independent of those with water. A related study in confirms water as the source of the oxygen incorporated into the oxygen containing products.  相似文献   

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