True polar wander on Europa from global-scale small-circle depressions

Paul Schenk (), Isamu Matsuyama and Francis Nimmo
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Paul Schenk: Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas 77058, USA
Isamu Matsuyama: Carnegie Institution of Washington
Francis Nimmo: University of California, Santa Cruz, California 95064, USA

Nature, 2008, vol. 453, issue 7193, 368-371

Abstract: Europa: Solid evidence for polar wander Imaging data from the Voyager, Galileo and New Horizons spacecraft have been used to map a series of curved concentric troughs on the surface of Jupiter's moon Europa. Up to hundreds of kilometres in length and 1.5 km deep, the largest of them almost perfect circles, these features are unlike anything seen before in the Solar System. Polar wander, caused by the reorientation of Europa's floating outer ice shell with respect to the underlying core, has been suggested as a possible cause for some of the many large-scale features on Europa's surface, but no global-scale features have been fond to be a good match to the tectonic stress patterns that global wander would induce. But these 'new' features are different: they are an excellent match for the pattern of tectonic stress caused by an episode of 80° of polar wander. This may be the first concrete evidence for this process on Europa, and strengthens arguments for similar rotations on Saturn's moon Enceladus.

Date: 2008
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DOI: 10.1038/nature06911

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