The origin of domes on Europa: The role of thermally induced compositional diapirism

Abstract

The surface of Jupiter's moon Europa is peppered by topographic domes, interpreted as sites of intrusion and extrusion. Diapirism is consistent with dome morphology, but thermal buoyancy alone cannot produce sufficient driving pressures to create the observed dome elevations. Instead, diapirs may initiate by thermal convection that induces compositional segregation. Exclusion of impurities from warm upwellings allows sufficient buoyancy for icy plumes to create the observed surface topography, provided the ice shell has a small effective elastic thickness (∼0.2 to 0.5 km) and contains low-eutectic-point impurities at the few percent level. This model suggests that the ice shell may be depleted in impurities over time. Copyright 2004 by the American Geophysical Union.