Abstrakt
Jupiter's moon Europa has a very young surface with the abundance of unique terrains that indicate recent endogenic activity. Morphological models as well as spectral observations suggest that it might possess shallow lenses of liquid water within its outer ice shell.
Here we investigate the generation and possible accumulation of liquid water below the tidally activated strike-slip faults using a numerical model of two-phase ice-water mixture in two-dimensional Cartesian geometry. Our results suggest that generation of shallow partially molten regions underneath Europa's active strike-slip faults is possible, but their lifetime is constrained by the formation of Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities due to the negative buoyancy of the melt.
Once formed, typically within a few million years, these instabilities efficiently transport the meltwater through the shell. Consequently, the maximum water content in the partially molten regions never exceeds 10% which challenges their possible detection by future exploration mission.