-Rachel Maxwell
A while back, during Cassini, when ocean/ice worlds were understood even worse than now, the idea that the "lithosphere" could be completely detached, ice-crust floating on water mantle, was just a hypothesis. It's a pretty strong theory now. Titan got good data to say it has such a thing going, but the best proof that detached crusts are a regular thing comes from Europa.
- Slide at 1:00. A specific fracture individually named Rhadamanthys Linea. Along with the other linea don't they look like there is a pattern to be identified? Put a pin in that idea.
- Slide at 2:30 demonstrates the mechanism by which Europa and Enceladus, probably Ganymede too, seem to get their linea patterns. Those arching tiger-stripes are curved with the ice surface on tidal-extension. When the floating crust moves over the more stationary core a different arc will form. The position of the crust changed, the position of the force did not. This is called tidal-walking.
- Slide at 3:40 has more to do with the speakers intended message. Specifically Rhadamanthys Linea as compared to Enceladus. Everything seems to line up nicely.
- At 4:50 Rhadamanthys expected tidal-walking is predicted.
These functions, tidal-walking and pull-apart basins, are going to come up again and again from now on in planetary science. One day someone will get brave enough to try it on rock, maybe IO. However Europa is the world in our system that by a huge margin is most likely to have life after Earth. And these functions are central to Europa.
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