Paul Byrne (Washington University): Little to No Active Faulting Likely at Europa’s Seafloor Today

Friday 12 Sept 2025, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Stockholm

Å80127

Title: Little to No Active Faulting Likely at Europa’s Seafloor Today
Speaker: Paul Byrne, Professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences. https://eeps.wustl.edu/people/paul-byrne
Affiliation: Washington University in St. Louis, USA
Time: Friday 12 September 2025, 1100 to 1200
Location: Å80127

Abstract:

Many of the outer Solar System’s icy satellites feature known or suspected subsurface oceans, at least some of which are likely situated atop rocky interiors. Water–rock interactions at and beneath these seafloors might support chemoautotrophic habitats there, sustained by hydrothermal systems and perhaps even ongoing seafloor volcanism. Any attainment of chemical equilibrium between the seafloor and ocean might limit the availability of chemical energy for life, however. In this talk, I review how we have characterised the stress state of Europa’s seafloor, and thus the prospect for fracturing and associated sub-seafloor fluid flow. We consider stresses from tidal forcing, global contraction, mantle convection, and serpentinisation, and find that none of these mechanisms is likely able to drive slip along even pre-existing fractures in the present. Ocean water–rock reactions taking place beneath the seafloor today are therefore probably restricted to fluid flow through only the upper few hundred metres of the seafloor. Any processes able to sustain habitable conditions at the Europan seafloor in the present are most likely independent of ongoing tectonic activity.

 

Zoom:
Topic: Seminar with Paul Byrne on Europa
Time: Sep 12, 2025 11:00 Amsterdam, Berlin, Rome, Stockholm, Vienna
https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/3058442110?omn=69805075779
Meeting ID: 305 844 2110
Passcode: venus