----- Original Message -----
From: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Sent: Tuesday, November 26, 2002 11:47 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Bands on Europa
http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Nov02/EuropanBands.html
Bands on Europa
Planetary Science Research Discoveries
November 25, 2002
--- Rifting at Earth's mid-ocean ridges is
a good analogy for Europan band formation.
Written by Linda M.V. Martel
Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Planetology
High-resolution Galileo images of Jupiter's icy moon Europa show linear,
curved, and wedge-shaped bands crisscrossing the surface. The bands are one
of five primary terrain types previously mapped on Europa; the other types
are plains, chaos, ridge, and crater materials [see PSRD article: The Europa
Scene in the Voyager-Galileo Era.] Now a team of scientists from the Applied
Physics Lab (APL), Brown University, Cornell University, the Nordic
Volcanological Institute (Iceland), and the Institute of Planetary
Exploration (Germany) have made detailed maps of five distinct bands. Louise
Prockter (APL) and her colleagues compare the Europan bands to Earth's
mid-ocean ridges. They discuss fast-spreading and slow-spreading models for
the Europan bands showing how warm ice may have welled up to the surface
through fractures. The team concludes that mid-ocean ridge rifting is a good
analogy for Europan band formation, that bands were responsible for
hemisphere-wide resurfacing on Europa, and that the style of resurfacing has
changed over time.
Reference:
Prockter, L. M., J. W. Head III, R. T. Pappalardo, R. J. Sullivan, A.
E. Clifton, B. Giese, R. Wagner, and G. Neukum (2002) Morphology of
Europan bands at high resolution: A mid-ocean ridge-type rift
mechanism, Journal of Geophysical Research, 107(E5),
10.1029/2000JE001458.
Full story here:
http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Nov02/EuropanBands.html
