a new look at the saturn system the voyager 2 images voyager 2 photography has complemented that of voyager i in revealing many additional characteristics of saturn and its satellites and rings saturn s atmosphere contains persistent oval cloud features reminiscent of features on jupiter smaller irregular features track out a pattern of zonal winds that is symmetric about saturn s equator and appears to extend to great depth winds are predominantly eastward and reach 500 meters per second at the equator titan has several haze layers with significantly varying optical properties and a northern polar collar that is dark at short wavelengths several satellites have been photographed at substantially improved resolution enceladus surface ranges from old densely cratered terrain to relatively young uncratered plains crossed by grooves and faults tethys has a crater 400 kilometers in diameter whose floor has domed to match tethys surface curvature and a deep trench that extends at least 270 around tethys circumference hyperion is cratered and irregular in shape iapetus bright trailing hemisphere includes several dark floored craters and phoebe has a very low albedo and rotates in the direction opposite to that of its orbital revolution with a period of 9 hours within saturn s rings the birth of a spoke has been observed and surprising azimuthal and time variability is found in the ringlet structure of the outer b ring these observations lead to speculations about saturn s internal structure and about the collisional and thermal history of the rings and satellites

on the application of simple rift basin models to the south polar region of enceladus 1 the south polar terrain spt of saturn s moon enceladus is a mysteriously active region that exhibits intriguing tectonic signatures and widespread fracturing the central region of the nearly circular spt is depressed into the surface by a few hundred meters and bounded by a ring of cliffs roughly 1 km high in this study we investigate whether this depression and surrounding mountainous uplift is consistent with the morphology of terrestrial rift basins and the possibility that the spt could have formed during a tectonic event analogous to those of such rift basins on earth using three mechanical models of basin formation we compare our predicted topography of the spt with observed topography of the region the first of three models we consider assumes crustal stretching by factor b and predicts a basin depth of roughly 600 m closely matching previously published estimates of the depth at the spt models of extension and compression assuming an elastic response in the ice crust predict best fit mountain uplift of roughly 1820 m and 1130 m respectively our preferred model suggests that the icy shell in the spt has been stretched but the extension is partially balanced by compression along the edges of the basin leading to the uplift of the mountains along the boundary thereby implying that the spt may have a tectonic origin analogous to that of a terrestrial basin

listric normal faulting stress refraction and the state of stress in the gulf coast basin the close association of overpressured shales and the coincident flattening of listric normal faults has been noted and is usually explained in terms of gravity sliding models however incorporation of overpressure into mohr coulomb frictional faulting theory does not predict normal faults dipping at angles less than 45 even for very low coefficients of friction we suggest that low angle normal faults may form because of a rotation of the maximum principal stress away from vertical with depth such a rotation occurs if a significant contrast in viscosity exists between two adjacent strata such as a normally pressured sandstone and an underlying overpressured shale or evaporite the stress refraction model renders the presence of a preexisting fault plane or an extremely low coefficient of friction unnecessary to explain listric fault geometry and offers a failure mechanism in agreement with frictional faulting theory based on rheological arguments

solid state ice volcanism on the satellites of uranus voyager images of the uranian satellites ariel and miranda show flow features with morphologies indicating that ice has been extruded to the satellites9 surfaces in the solid state these images provide the first observational evidence for solid state ice volcanism in the solar system topographic profiles have been measured across a number of flow features on ariel with a simple model of extrusion spreading and cooling of a viscous flow the initial viscosity of the flow material is found to have been no more than about 10 16 poise far lower than expected for h 2 o ice at the ambient surface temperatures in the uranian system sharply reduced viscosities may have resulted from incorporation of ices like nh 3 or ch 4 in the uranian satellites

unstable extension of enceladus lithosphere abstract regions near enceladus equator sarandib and diyar planitia contain extensive sets of parallel ridges and troughs that may be diagnostic of the region s formation conditions we present photoclinometry profiles across these ridges and troughs which indicate that they are periodic low slope features with dominant wavelengths of 3 to 4 km and amplitudes between 100 and 400 m the morphology of these terrains is consistent with formation via unstable extension of the lithosphere our numerical modeling demonstrates that unstable extension can generate large scale topography under enceladus like conditions comparison of our photoclinometry profiles with the dominant wavelengths produced by our numerical model permits estimation of the background heat flow at the time the sarandib diyar province formed we estimate heat flows of 110 to 220 mw m 2 suggesting that resurfacing of the planitiae was accompanied by strong localized heating the extension necessary to produce the ridges and troughs may have been caused by now inactive diapirs internal phase changes or other mechanisms our heat flux estimates imply elastic thickness at the time of resurfacing of 0 4 to 1 4 km which are sufficient to have allowed satellite reorientation if the province was underlain by a low density region it is therefore plausible that enceladus has experienced multiple heating events each leading to localized resurfacing and global reorientation

how fast is rupture during an earthquake new insights from the 1999 turkey earthquakes we report that during the two devastating 1999 earthquakes in turkey rupture propagated over a large part of the nearly 200km long fault zone at supershear speed approaching 5km s we present observations and modeling which confirm the original inference of supershear rupture during the izmit earthquake and we show that supershear rupture also occurred during the duzce earthquake we show that the rupture velocity measured about 2 times the shear wave velocity is the value predicted by theoretical studies in fracture dynamics we look for clues to explain these observations

three layered models of ganymede and callisto compositions structures and aspects of evolution abstract three layered structural models are determined for ganymede and callisto each consists of a rock core a mixed ice rock lower mantle and a pure ice upper mantle this structure results from differentiation subsequent to accretional melting attention is given to evaluating various candidates for the rock component and three alternatives representing various degrees of silicate hydration and oxidation are modeled and incorporated structures are calculated on the basis of a 250 k isotherm which is a reasonablev approximation to the gentle adiabats expected to occur in icy satellites differentiation of an ice rock satellite generally involves an increase in radius and the three layered approach allows this process to be examined in some detail it is determined that satellite expansion is most significant early in the process and much less so as differentiation proceeds to completion if tectonics are due to global expansion distinguishing on this basis between a completely differentiated satellite and one that is only partially differentiated is difficult the postaccretional global expansion of ganymede which may have left a tectonic record was probably limited to 1 in radius in agreement with observed limits useful quantities such as silicate mass and volume fraction uncompressed density j2 c22 binding energy and surface heat flow are also determined nonhydrostatic contributions to j2 and c22 are estimated and shown to be nonnegligible encounters with jupiter orbiting spacecraft are unlikely to determine callisto s degree of central condensation we conclude by calculating the relative likelihood of postaccretional melting caused by radiogenic heating three layered satellites have generally hotter interiors because additional thermal boundary layers divide the separately convecting upper and lower mantles inhibiting heat transport ganymedes and callistos that are less than about 1 3 differentiated by mass should experience a second episode of melting as these boundary layers are either above the level of the water ice minimum melting temperature or intersect the melting curve at deeper levels runaway differentiation to at least a depth corresponding to a pressure in the ice v stability field is likely the main point here is that if satellite tectonics are tied to differentiation by melting or its aftermath as in the instability following ocean closure of kirk and stevenson moderate or small amounts of accretional differentiation are unlikely to explain an absence of tectonics as in callisto because extensive differentiation ultimately occurs

222rn transport in a fractured crystalline rock aquifer results from numerical simulations abstract dissolved 222 rn concentrations in ground water from a small wellfield underlain by fractured middle proterozoic pikes peak granite southwest of denver colorado range from 124 to 840 kbq m 3 3360 22700 pci l 1 numerical simulations of flow and transport between two wells show that differences in equivalent hydraulic aperture of transmissive fractures assuming a simplified two fracture system and the parallel plate model can account for the different 222 rn concentrations in each well under steady state conditions transient flow and transport simulations show that 222 rn concentrations along the fracture profile are influenced by 222 rn concentrations in the adjoining fracture and depend on boundary conditions proximity of the pumping well to the fracture intersection transmissivity of the conductive fractures and pumping rate non homogeneous distribution point sources of 222 rn parent radionuclides uranium and 226 ra can strongly perturb the dissolved 222 rn concentrations in a fracture system without detailed information on the geometry and hydraulic properties of the connected fracture system it may be impossible to distinguish the influence of factors controlling 222 rn distribution or to determine location of 222 rn point sources in the field in areas where ground water exhibits moderate 222 rn concentrations flow and transport simulations of a hypothetical multifracture system consisting of ten connected fractures each 10 m in length with fracture apertures ranging from 0 1 to 1 0 mm show that 222 rn concentrations at the pumping well can vary significantly over time assuming parallel plate flow transmissivities of the hypothetical system vary over four orders of magnitude because transmissivity varies with the cube of fracture aperture the extreme hydraulic heterogeneity of the simple hypothetical system leads to widely ranging 222 rn values even assuming homogeneous distribution of uranium and 226 ra along fracture walls consequently it is concluded that 222 rn concentrations vary not only with the geometric and stress factors noted above but also according to local fracture aperture distribution local groundwater residence time and flux of 222 rn from parent radionuclides along fracture walls

direct observation of rupture propagation during the 1979 imperial valley earthquake using a short baseline accelerometer array abstract the 1979 imperial valley california earthquake m s 6 9 was recorded on the el centro differential array a 213 m long linear array of 5 three component digital accelerometers 5 6 km from the nearest tectonic surface rupture although absolute time was not recorded on the array elements a relative time base was established using the main shock hypocentral p wave and the p and s waves from a later aftershock a cross correlation technique was used to measure the difference in arrival times of individual seismic waves in a moving 0 6 to 1 2 sec window at each array element which would then be converted into the wave9s slowness 1 velocity along the array when applied to the main shock vertical and horizontal accelerograms results from both components of motion indicated that the early arriving energy came from a source to the south of the array and the source of the energy moved rapidly to the north of the array during the strong shaking the ground motions at the array elements were well correlated for about the first 11 sec of motion these observations suggest that we have observed the initiation of rupture south of the array and its subsequent propagation along the fault to a position north of the array in about 10 sec and that the energy was radiated from a fairly compact region around the rupture front if the observed vertical and horizontal ground motions are assumed to be caused by p and s waves respectively then the observed slownesses show irregularities which can be interpreted as implying that the observed high frequency ground motions originated at irregularly distributed regions on the fault surface or that the rupture velocity was variable or both one possible interpretation of the data suggests that the rupture proceeded at near p wave velocity over a 7 km long section of fault average rupture velocities of about 2 7 to 3 2 km sec at 8 km depth are consistent with the data and 2 8 km sec is weakly preferred under the assumption that rupture propagates at a fixed fraction of the shear velocity the large vertical pulse which had a peak acceleration of 1 7 g at e06 was emitted from the portion of the fault extending 25 to 30 km northwest of the hypocenter near meloland overpass and not from the point on the fault closest to the differential array nothing can be said about fault behavior southeast of the hypocenter

importance of bimaterial interfaces for earthquake dynamics and strong ground motion summary we perform a numerical investigation of dynamic ruptures on a bimaterial interface in 3 d with regularized slip weakening friction and a heterogeneous initial shear stress and discuss the resulting strong ground motion to isolate effects introduced by the material contrast we perform pairs of simulations with opposite material orientations we show that for many parameter sets the dynamics of rupture propagation are significantly influenced by the broken symmetry due to the material contrast during rupture propagation the resulting slip histories of two events with reversed orientations of the material contrast can deviate such that the emanating waves lead to large differences in peak ground motion peak ground velocity and peak ground acceleration even when slip distribution of the individual events are very similar and therefore their moment magnitudes are basically identical we also show that the wrinkle like slip pulse specific to the bimaterial mechanism can be nucleated naturally from an initially crack like mode of rupture when the initial stress allows for large propagation distances once such a pulse has been nucleated it travels at a dominant propagation speed close to the generalized rayleigh velocity the dynamic weakening of the fault due to the normal stress alteration during slip allows nucleating ruptures to overcome asperities of low initial shear stress in the preferred direction which is the direction of displacement on the seismically slower side of the fault in such situations the orientation of the material contrast determines rupture extent and therefore the size of the earthquake potentially by orders of magnitude

friction of ice the frictional strength of ice seems to be well below that for all other rocks triaxial testing of cylinders of pure water ice containing a 45 inclined sawcut at temperatures of 77 t 115 k and confining pressures 0 1 p 250 mpa reveals the frictional laws 0 20 n 8 3 mpa for p 10 mpa and 0 55 n 1 0 mpa for p 5 mpa where and n are the shear and normal stresses on the sawcut surface friction is independent of t and over the one order of magnitude tested of average sliding velocity the sliding behavior is invariably stick slip examination of sliding surfaces shows only minor gouge development a curious arrangement of densely packed short vertical fractures occurs primarily in samples with anomalously low strength these results apply to models of near surface tectonic activity on jupiter s three large icy moons europa callisto and ganymede they indicate for example that a global expansion on ganymede of 3 linear percent will cause extensional movement on preexisting faults at depths to 7 3 km

reply to comment on how fast is rupture during an earthquake new insights from the 1999 turkey earthquakes 1 in a previous paper bouchon et al 2001 we presented what we believe are strong indications of supershear rupture over parts of the faults of the 1999 turkey earthquakes these findings are based on near fault recordings and modeling of the ground motion we also showed that the supershear value inferred for the izmit earthquake the only event for which this velocity is well resolved is close to ffiffiffi

fault geometries on uranus satellite miranda implications for internal structure and heat flow abstract miranda a 470 km diameter uranian icy satellite has a surface that exhibits evidence of a complex tectonic history tectonic structures are mostly localized in three regions termed coronae but also form a rift system inferred to be global in extent ridges within the boundary of arden corona and those that make up the 340 chasma part of the global rift system have been interpreted as normal fault blocks using voyager data we test the hypothesis that these arden corona faults as well as those at the northern edge of the 340 chasma are listric in geometry for this testing we use four geometric criteria for listric faults 1 progressive down dip decrease in fault scarp dip 2 progressive down dip increase in back tilted face slope 3 concavity of the exposed scarp surface and 4 presence of a rollover structure results of this analysis support the hypothesis that the faults within the arden corona boundary are listric in geometry but do not strongly support the hypothesis for the faults within the 340 chasma by analogy with terrestrial structures the listric character of faults within the arden corona boundary suggests the presence of a subsurface detachment this detachment likely occurred at miranda s brittle ductile transition zone at the time of faulting measurements of the arden corona fault system geometry are used to estimate depths to the proposed brittle ductile transition zone at the time of faulting resulting in values of 6 7 9 0 km those depths in turn are used to estimate a thermal gradient of 6 25 k km 1 and a surface heat flux of 31 112 mw m 2 the weaker evidence of a listric geometry for the faults of the 340 chasma suggests that those faults did not interact with a brittle ductile transition at the time of their formation our estimated thermal gradient of the arden corona region is consistent with a previous heating event on miranda that was as significant as europa s current resonance induced tidal heating this heating event may be associated with a hypothesized previous tidal resonance of miranda with umbriel and or ariel

origin of rollover rollover is the folding of hanging wall fault blocks by bending or collapse in response to slip on nonplanar commonly listric normal faults the shapes of rollover folds are controlled by a number of variables including 1 the shape of the fault 2 the total fault slip after a bed is deposited 3 the direction of relative particle motion in hanging wall collapse 4 the history of sedimentation rate relative to fault slip rate and 5 compaction the importance and role of each of these variables is illustrated by a two dimensional balanced structural modeling technique that treats continuously curved faults as though composed of a large number of straight fault segments in this modeling an active axial surface oriented parallel to the direction of relative p rticle motion in hanging wall collapse emanates from each fault bend and is the instantaneous locus of folding the quantitative correctness of this theory of rollover is tested by modeling natural structures from the gulf of mexico for which both fault shape and fold shape are known from high quality seismic and well sections the direction of hanging wall collapse commonly is in the antithetic or synthetic normal fault or coulomb shear orientations although sliding along weak bedding planes also is an important collapse mechanism in some regions collapse is in the antithetic shear direction for concave fault bends and in the synthetic shear direction for convex bends these collapse directions can be observed directly in some high quality seismic images as axial surfaces emanating from fault bends the shapes of rollovers within growth strata depend strongly on the sedimentation rate relative to fault slip rate as well as the total slip after a bed is deposited the crests of classic gulf coast rollovers are growth axial surfaces along which are abrupt changes in sedimentation rate within the growth st atigraphic interval these changes are produced by deformation of the sediment water interface along active axial surfaces compaction can substantially modify the relationship between fault shape and rollover shape however under certain common conditions the history of compaction can be neglected if the folding is modeled in the compacted state

voyager 2 in the uranian system imaging science results voyager 2 images of the southern hemisphere of uranus indicate that submicrometersize haze particles and particles of a methane condensation cloud produce faint patterns in the atmosphere the alignment of the cloud bands is similar to that of bands on jupiter and saturn but the zonal winds are nearly opposite at mid latitudes 70 degrees to 27 degrees where winds were measured the atmosphere rotates faster than the magnetic field however the rotation rate of the atmosphere decreases toward the equator so that the two probably corotate at about 20 degrees voyager images confirm the extremely low albedo of the ring particles high phase angle images reveal on the order of 10 2 new ringlike features of very low optical depth and relatively high dust abundance interspersed within the main rings as well as a broad diffuse low optical depth ring just inside the main rings system nine of the newly discovered small satellites 40 to 165 kilometers in diameter orbit between the rings and miranda the tenth is within the ring system two of these small objects may gravitationally confine the e ring oberon and umbriel have heavily cratered surfaces resembling the ancient cratered highlands of earth s moon although umbriel is almost completely covered with uniform dark material which perhaps indicates some ongoing process titania and ariel show crater populations different from those on oberon and umbriel these were probably generated by collisions with debris confined to their orbits titania and ariel also show many extensional fault systems ariel shows strong evidence for the presence of extrusive material about halfof miranda s surface is relatively bland old cratered terrain the remainder comprises three large regions of younger terrain each rectangular to ovoid in plan that display complex sets of parallel and intersecting scarps and ridges as well as numerous outcrops of bright and dark materials perhaps suggesting some exotic composition

extensional tilt blocks on miranda evidence for an upwelling origin of arden corona subparallel ridges and troughs in the outer belt of arden corona on the uranian satellite miranda are interpreted as tilt blocks formed by extension and normal faulting fault scarps generally face outward from the corona exposing dark material in the subsurface reconstruction of faults along a deep rift zone bounding the corona suggests initial dips of 50 local extension reaches 70 extremely high in comparison to previous estimates of strain on icy satellites a rise adjacent to the rift zone is modeled as flexural and indicates an effective elastic lithospheric thickness of 2 km at the time of flexure the assumption that faulting has significantly weakened the lithosphere suggests a mechanical lithosphere thickness of 5 to 10 km corresponding thermal gradients in a frictionally controlled ice lithosphere are 8 to 20 k km 1 and lithospheric tensional strength is 0 4 to 1 8 mpa normal faulting in arden corona indicates that internal upwelling likely formed the corona and the outward facing direction of faults is consistent with such a model an upwelling origin of miranda s coronae eliminates the need to invoke catastrophic breakup and reaccretion of the satellite as an explanation for its surface geology

geophysical implications of the long wavelength topography of rhea 1 we use limb profiles to investigate the long wavelength topography and topographic variance spectrum of rhea one dimensional variance spectra show a break in slope at a wavelength of 300 km a similar effect is seen on the moon and may be a signature of an elastic lithosphere having a thickness te 10 km the implied heat flux is 15 mw m 2 much higher than can be explained by radiogenic heating we use the 1 d spectral behavior to constrain our solution for the long wavelength global topography of rhea the degree 3 topography is large enough if uncompensated to contaminate estimates of the degree 2 gravity using existing flyby data current models of rhea internal structures which rely on these degree 2 estimates may thus be inaccurate illustrating the need to acquire further rhea gravity data

planetary science tectonic overturn on enceladus the south pole of saturn s icy moon enceladus is anomalously warm geologically youthful and cryovolcanically active episodic convective overturn explains how the moon s modest sources of internal heat can be channelled into intense geological activity

the geometry of listric normal faults and deformation in their hangingwalls abstract in cross sections containing listric extensional faults area balancing techniques for depth to decollement are usually based on either bed length conservation or displacement conservation listric fault geometry may be constructed from a hangingwall roll over profile using the chevron construction this construction based on conservation of heave necessitates a reduction in fault displacement with decreasing fault dip a modification of this construction utilizing conservation of fault displacement predicts a listric fault that detaches at a shallower depth a new construction based on slip lines uses fault perpendicular displacement segments to generate listric fault shape fault propagation strain may be responsible for anomalous hangingwall geometries and these can be predicted by forward modelling using either a modified chevron construction or a slip line construction

convective instability in europa s floating ice shell models of the tidally heated floating ice shell proposed for the jovian satellite europa generally find shell thicknesses less than 30 km past parameterized convection models indicated that such shells are stable against convective overturn which otherwise ostensibly leads to freezing of the ocean underneath here i apply the temperature dependent viscosity convection scaling developed by solomatov and coworkers to the europan ice shell the temperature dependent properties of ice are linearized about 260 k as any convective interior should be close to this temperature with the colder ice forming an essentially passive stagnant lid ice shells 10 km thick are found to be unstable to convection at their base for melting point viscosities of 1013 pa s as linearized by tidal stresses if the ice deforms by superplastic creep but such low viscosities require small grain sizes 1 mm this requirement may be met if grain sizes observed in terrestrial polar glaciers can be strain rate scaled to europa regardless convection at the base of the ice shell if initiated may not freeze the ocean because of tidal heating a stagnant lid regime ice shell is much more dissipative than a conductive shell of the same thickness such a shell should thin not thicken and the potential exists for further thermal instabilities and runaways

balanced cross section construction from seismic sections in areas of extensional tectonics abstract the application of the technique of balanced section construction initially developed for areas of compressional folding and faulting is reviewed with reference to extensional tectonics a number of examples are discussed where these techniques have been successfully applied in the north sea the interpretation of geoseismic sections is considered to be greatly assisted by careful application of geometrical balance and a consideration of strain even in areas of low crustal extensions the nature of seismic sections however places limitations on the validity of balancing which must be borne in mind with such interpretations and wherever possible the balancing of a geoseismic section should be confirmed by complete depth conversion the rapid testing of the integrity of the geoseismic section by attempting to balance the section at the interpretational phase can eliminate many problems as well as allowing the fullest use to be made of the geophysical information

asymmetric lithospheric extension the role of frictional plastic strain softening inferred from numerical experiments plane strain thermomechanical finite element model experiments of lithospheric extension are used to investigate the effects of strain softening in the frictional plastic regime on the asymmetry of extension strain softening is considered in cases where the crust is either strongly or weakly coupled to the mantle and as the extension velocity varies from 0 3 to 30 cm yr in the absence of strain softening extension is symmetric ss mode when strain softening takes the form of a reduction in the internal angle of friction with increasing strain lithospheric extension may be asymmetric at a lithospheric scale aa mode or exhibit crustal asymmetry concomitant with mantle symmetry as mode the different styles depend on the relative control of the system by the frictional plastic and ductile layers which promote asymmetry and symmetry respectively high extension velocities and weak ductile crust mantle coupling tend to suppress the fundamental asymmetry induced by frictional strain softening this is because they respectively increase the effective strength of the lower lithosphere and decrease the control by frictional plasticity

the geology of tethys the surface of the saturnian satellite tethys has been recognized to consist of four major landforms or physiographic provinces hilly cratered terrain the odysseus impact structure rifts and lineaments including ithaca chasma and plains terrain two alternate scenarios for the geological evolution of the satellite are developed the first model assumes that ithaca chasma and the other rifts and lineaments were created by the odysseus impact event the second model assumes that rifting was a result of the freeze expansion of tethys liquid water interior in both models the hilly cratered terrain is postulated to be the oldest unit and the plains terrain the youngest

implications from ithaca chasma for the thermal and orbital history of tethys 1 flexural modeling of ithaca chasma on tethys suggests that the elastic thickness and the surface heat flux were 5 7 km and 18 30 mw m2 respectively when the feature formed 4 gyr b p tidal heating is a plausible heat source suggesting that tethys eccentricity was higher in the past depending on tethys internal structure eccentricities in the range 0 001 to 0 02 are sufficient to have generated the inferred heat flux because the eccentricity damping timescale is short 20 myr it is unlikely that this eccentricity was primordial more likely tethys eccentricity increased during passage through a 3 2 resonance with dione in equilibrium this resonance produces 2 5 mw m2 suggesting that non equilibrium or periodic heating was important similar to the case for enceladus at present

the tectonic and volcanic history of rhea as inferred from studies of scarps ridges troughs and other lineaments abstract analyses of landforms on rhea are used to define 13 types of geomorphic features interpreted to be of tectonic and volcano tectonic origin all types except one seem to be extensional in origin they occurred after the formation of population i craters and are contemporaneous with a major resurfacing event the troughs grabens grooves pit chains scarps and other lineaments vare pure extensional features while the ridges are volcanic features formed in an extensional stress field this global surface extension was followed by an era of global compression which produced megaridges and megascarps these compressional features are not numerous enough to fit the theoretical stresses predicted by the typical thermal models of rhea all the extensional landforms appear to form a global grid pattern this planetary wide grid is similar in direction to the theoretical pattern of a tidally distorted planet that suggests either an orbital variation very early in the history of rhea or the existence of an unknown process which has oriented the stress field during the extensional period

folding of europa s icy lithosphere an analysis of viscous plastic buckling and subsequent topographic relaxation abstract potential contractional folds on jupiter s icy moon europa have been identified the best example is at the extensional band astypalaea linea where a series of subtle topographic undulations 25 km in wavelength possess parasitic tectonic features that support a folding origin a scenario has been qualitatively proposed whereby folds form via unstable contraction of the icy lithosphere compensate for extension elsewhere on europa and then subsequently relax here we quantitatively address this scenario applying a model for viscous plastic buckling of planetary lithospheres and finite element simulations of topographic relaxation our results suggest that the lithosphere of europa could indeed be unstable but the low required surface temperatures limit fold formation to higher latitudes and the high required driving stresses 9 10 mpa are difficult to achieve on the satellite the depth to the brittle ductile transition is well constrained and high thermal gradients are indicated implying heat flows near 100 mw m 2 in addition topographic relaxation progresses so slowly even at these heat flows that it is not a viable mechanism to eliminate such features over the age of europa s surface given the paucity of identified folds we conclude that the necessary conditions for their formation are rare and that lithospheric folding is a minor mechanism for compensating the large amounts of extension seen elsewhere on europa

a fracture history on enceladus provides evidence for a global ocean 1 the region surrounding the south pole of saturn s moon enceladus shows a young pervasively fractured surface that emanates enough heat to be detected by the cassini spacecraft to explain the elevated heat and eruptive icy plumes originating from large cracks informally called tiger stripes in the surface many models implicitly assume a global liquid ocean beneath the surface here we show that the fracture patterns in the south polar terrain spt of enceladus are inconsistent with contemporary stress fields but instead formed in a temporally varying global stress field related to nonsynchronous rotation of a floating ice shell above a global liquid ocean this finding increase to at least three the number of outer planet satellites likely to possess a subsurface liquid water layer

effects of a low velocity zone on a dynamic rupture dynamic crack earthquake simulations generally assume that the crustal material surrounding faults is laterally homogeneous tomographic and near fault seismic studies indicate that the crust near faults is instead comprised of rocks of varying material velocities we have tested the effects of adding material velocity variation to simulations of spontaneously propagating earthquakes we used two dimensional plane strain conditions coupled with a slip weakening fracture criterion and examined earthquakes on faults that bisect finite width low velocity zones embedded in country rock and earthquakes on faults that bound two different velocity materials when a fault bisects a low velocity zone the normal stress remains unchanged but both the rupture velocity and slip velocity pulse shape are perturbed the presence of the low velocity zone induces high frequency oscillations in the slip function near the rupture front when the fault is on the edge of the low velocity zone the oscillations are more pronounced and repeated sticking and slipping can occur near the rupture front for the slip weakening velocity independent friction model however the temporary sticking does not lead to permanent arrest of slip and slip duration is still controlled by the overall rupture dimension when an earthquake ruptures a fault juxtaposing a lower velocity material against a higher velocity material the normal stress across the fault near the crack tip is perturbed the sign of the normal stress perturbation depends on the direction of rupture leading in some cases to a directional dependence of rupture velocity when slip is accompanied by stress reduction a positive feedback develops between the normal and shear stress changes as previously noted by andrews and ben zion 1997 resulting in an apparently unavoidable grid size dependence in computation of stress change near the rupture front numerical experiments indicate however that the rupture velocity is insensitive to this zone size dependence which is highly localized immediately behind the crack tip the factors controlling the rupture velocity in the simulations including directional dependence are further elucidated by a new analytical solution for rupture of an asperity on a frictionless interface

enceladus south polar sea recent observations of the south pole of saturn s moon enceladus by the cassini spacecraft have revealed an active world powered by internal heat in this paper we propose that localized subsurface melting on enceladus has produced an internal south polar sea evidence for this localized sea comes from the shape of enceladus which does not match a differentiated body at its current orbital position we show that melting induced by the observed heat flow at the south pole produces a large enough pit to match the shape of enceladus with a differentiated rock and ice interior numerical modeling of melting and ice flow shows that the sea produced beneath the south pole is stable against inflow of ductile ice from its surroundings for the duration of the heating the shape modification due to melting also produces a negative degree two gravity anomaly which can reorient the spin axis of enceladus in order to place the sea at the pole

a faulting model for the 1979 imperial valley earthquake by comparing synthetic particle velocities with the near source strong motion data we have constructed by trial and error a faulting model for the 1979 imperial valley earthquake the calculation of the synthetic seismograms takes into account the vertical inhomogeneity of the elastic parameters in the imperial valley and the spatial variation of the slip rate parameters on the fault plane the independent slip rate parameters are 1 the strike slip rate amplitude 2 the dip slip rate amplitude 3 the duration that slip rate is nonzero the rise time of the slip function and 4 the rupture time which determines when the slip rate is initiated our faulting model has the following principal features 1 faulting occurred on the imperial fault and on the brawley fault rupture on the brawley fault being triggered by rupture on the imperial fault 2 the imperial fault is a plane 35 km long and 13 km wide with a strike of 323 measured clockwise from north and a dip of 80 ne the brawley fault is a 10 km long and 8 km wide plane with a strike of 360 and a dip of 90 3 faulting on the imperial fault is primarily right lateral strike slip with a small component of normal dip slip in the sediments at its northern end the larger strike slip rates are generally confined between depths of 5 and 13 km with maximum values of about 1 0 m s the duration varies on the fault with a maximum of 1 9 s which is considerably shorter than the total time for the rupture to take place 4 the rupture velocity on the imperial fault is highly variable locally it exceeds the shear wave velocity and in one instance the compressional wave velocity the average rupture velocity though is less than the shear wave velocity 5 although the slip on the brawley fault contributes only about 4 of the total moment it greatly affects the ground motion at nearby stations 6 the total seismic moment is 6 7 1018 n m where the imperial fault contributes 6 4 1018 n m and the brawley fault contributes 2 7 1017 n m in the process of trying almost 300 faulting models we found that given the elastic parameters of the medium the synthetic seismograms were most sensitive to the specification of the rupture time although the slip rate amplitudes are linearly related to the data the rupture time and the duration are not the parameterization of the nonlinear variables has a strong effect on the generation of synthetic seismograms from a finite fault

enceladus extreme heat flux as revealed by its relaxed craters 1 enceladus cratered terrains contain large numbers of unusually shallow craters consistent with deformation by viscous relaxation of water ice under conditions of elevated heat flow here we use high resolution topography to measure the relaxation fraction of craters on enceladus far from the active south pole we find that many craters are shallower than expected with craters as small as 2 km in diameter having relaxation fractions in excess of 90 these measurements are compared with numerical simulations of crater relaxation to constrain the minimum heat flux required to reproduce these observations we find that enceladus nominal cold surface temperature 70 k and low surface gravity strongly inhibit viscous relaxation under such conditions less than 3 relaxation occurs over 2 ga even for relatively large craters diameter 24 km and high constant heat fluxes 150 mw m 2 greater viscous relaxation occurs if the effective temperature at the top of the lithosphere is greater than the surface temperature due to insulating regolith and or plume material even for an effective temperature of 120 k however heat fluxes in excess of 150 mw m 2are required to produce the degree of relaxation observed simulations of viscous relaxation of enceladus largest craters suggest that relaxation is best explained by a relatively short lived period of intense heating that decayed quickly we show that infilling of craters by plume material cannot explain the extremely shallow craters at equatorial and higher northern latitudes thus like enceladus tectonic terrains the cratered regions of enceladus have experienced periods of extreme heat flux

a shear heating origin for ridges on triton 1 triton and europa each display a variety of distinctive curvilinear ridges and associated troughs here we propose that ridges on triton may have formed by diurnal tidal stresses in a manner similar to that proposed for ridge formation on europa the greater width of ridges on triton is likely a consequence of the lower surface temperature and greater brittle ductile transition depth on this body compared to europa the magnitudes of the stresses and heat fluxes required to generate ridges of the correct scale are comparable to likely values generated during the latter part of triton s orbital evolution from an initial highly eccentric state