Mapping and Modeling of Candidate Cryovolcanic Domes on Europa

The Galileo spacecraft’s Solid State Imager revealed that Jupiter’s moon Europa has a young surface with diverse features, including pits, spots, and domes. A variety of mechanisms have been proposed for the formation of Europa’s domical uplifts, including diapirism and cryovolcanic emplacement. Owing to their circular or lobate shape and relatively smooth surfaces which are distinct from the background terrain, a subset of Europa’s domes are considered to be cryovolcanic in origin.

The morphology and emplacement of putative cryolava domes have been the focus of several studies. Thirty-eight candidate cryolava domes in the Conamara region were included in a preliminary cryolava dome database; a third of these domes were later modeled using a volume flux approach that considered dome formation as cryolava was erupted onto Europa’s surface at a constant rate. That modeling approach resulted in fluid viscosities of dome-forming cryolavas that are up to five orders of magnitude less than previous studies. We significantly expanded the cryolava dome database to include 186 candidate cryolava domes and modeled the formation of these cryolava domes to enhance our understanding of the rheology of Europa’s cryolavas and better constrain the rates of surface-subsurface exchange of potentially habitable subsurface reservoirs in perhaps youthful areas on Europa’s surface.