Fracture and Stress Evolution on Europa: New Insights Into Fracture Interpretation and Ice Thickness Estimates Using Fracture Mechanics Analyses

The work completed during the funding period has provided many important insights into fracturing behavior in Europa's ice shell. It has been determined that fracturing through time is likely to have been controlled by the effects of nonsynchronous rotation stresses and that as much as 720 deg of said rotation may have occurred during the visible geologic history. It has been determined that there are at least two distinct styles of strike-slip faulting and that their mutual evolutionary styles are likely to have been different, with one involving a significant dilational component during shear motion. It has been determined that secondary fracturing in perturbed stress fields adjacent to older structures such as faults is a prevalent process on Europa. It has been determined that cycloidal ridges are likely to experience shear stresses along the existing segment portions as they propagate, which affects propagation direction and ultimately induces tailcracking at the segment tip than then initiates a new cycle of cycloid segment growth. Finally, it has been established that mechanical methods (e.g., flexure analysis) can be used to determine the elastic thickness of the ice shell, which, although probably only several km thick, is likely to be spatially variable, being thinner under bands but thicker under ridged plains terrain.