Heat production and tidally driven fluid flow in the permeable core of Enceladus

Author Posting. © American Geophysical Union, 2020. This article is posted here by permission of American Geophysical Union for personal use, not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets 125(9), (2020): e2019JE006209, doi:10.1029/2019JE006209Saturn's moon Enceladus has a global subsurface ocean and a porous rocky core in which water‐rock reactions likely occur; it is thus regarded as a potentially habitable environment. For icy moons like Enceladus, tidal heating is considered to be the main heating mechanism, which has generally been modeled using viscoelastic solid rheologies in existing studies. Here we provide a new framework for calculating tidal heating based on a poroviscoelastic model in which the porous solid and interstitial fluid deformation are coupled. We show that the total heating rate predicted for a poroviscoelastic core is significantly larger than that predicted using a classical viscoelastic model for intermediate to large (>1014 Pa·s) rock viscosities. The periodic deformation of the porous rock matrix is accompanied by interstitial pore fluid flow, and the combined effects through viscous dissipation result in high heat fluxes particularly at the poles. The heat generated in the rock matrix is also enhanced due to the high compressibility of the porous matrix structure. For a sufficiently compressible core and high permeability, the total heat production can exceed 10 GW—a large fraction of the moon's total heat budget—without requiring unrealistically low solid viscosities. The partitioning of heating between rock and fluid constituents depends most sensitively on the viscosity of the rock matrix. As the core of Enceladus warms and weakens over time, pore fluid motion likely shifts from pressure‐driven local oscillations to buoyancy‐driven global hydrothermal convection, and the core transitions from fluid‐dominated to rock‐dominated heating.2021-01-2

The thermal-orbital evolution of the Earth-Moon system with a subsurface magma ocean and fossil figure

Various theories have been proposed to explain the Moon's current inclined orbit. We test the viability of these theories by reconstructing the thermal-orbital history of the Moon. We build on past thermal-orbital models and incorporate the evolution of the lunar figure including a fossil figure component. Obliquity tidal heating in the lunar magma ocean would have produced rapid inclination damping, making it difficult for an early inclination to survive to the present-day. An early inclination is preserved only if the solid-body of the early Moon were less dissipative than at present. If instabilities at the Laplace plane transition were the source of the inclination, then the Moon had to recede slowly, which is consistent with previous findings of a weakly dissipative early Earth. If collisionless encounters with planetesimals up to 140 Myr after Moon formation excited the inclination, then the Moon had to migrate quickly to pass through the Cassini state transition at 33 Earth radii and reach a period of limited inclination damping. The fossil figure was likely established before 16 Earth radii to match the present-day degree-2 gravity field observations.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Magnetic meteorites and the early solar system

Today, the Earth generates a magnetic field through convection of the electrically conducting molten iron in its outer core. Core convection is governed by the thermal and chemical processes that operate deep within our planet; thus measurements of the intensity and direction of the magnetic field can provide insights into the thermochemical state of the Earth's interior. Crustal rocks can also record and preserve a memory of the field they experienced as they were forming. Paleomagnetic measurements can therefore provide records of ancient magnetic activity and, by extension, the internal conditions of our planet in the past (Tarduno et al. 2014). A combination of paleomagnetic and present-day magnetic measurements therefore allow us to study the long-term and large-scale evolution of our planet over billions of years; this method could also potentially allow us to predict how it may behave in the future

Constraints on terrestrial planet formation timescales and equilibration processes in the Grand Tack scenario from Hf-W isotopic evolution

We examine 141 N-body simulations of terrestrial planet late-stage accretion that use the Grand Tack scenario, coupling the collisional results with a hafnium-tungsten (Hf-W) isotopic evolution model. Accretion in the Grand Tack scenario results in faster planet formation than classical accretion models because of higher planetesimal surface density induced by a migrating Jupiter. Planetary embryos that grow rapidly experience radiogenic ingrowth of mantle $^{182}$W that is inconsistent with the measured terrestrial composition, unless much of the tungsten is removed by an impactor core that mixes thoroughly with the target mantle. For physically Earth-like surviving planets, we find that the fraction of equilibrating impactor core $k_\text{core} \geq 0.6$ is required to produce results agreeing with observed terrestrial tungsten anomalies (assuming equilibration with relatively large volumes of target mantle material; smaller equilibrating mantle volumes would require even larger $k_\text{core}$). This requirement of substantial core re-equilibration may be difficult to reconcile with fluid dynamical predictions and hydrocode simulations of mixing during large impacts, and hence this result does not favor the rapid planet building that results from Grand Tack accretion.Comment: 34 pages, 5 figures, published in EPS

Magnetic meteorites and the early solar system

Today, the Earth generates a magnetic field through convection of the electrically conducting molten iron in its outer core. Core convection is governed by the thermal and chemical processes that operate deep within our planet; thus measurements of the intensity and direction of the magnetic field can provide insights into the thermochemical state of the Earth's interior. Crustal rocks can also record and preserve a memory of the field they experienced as they were forming. Paleomagnetic measurements can therefore provide records of ancient magnetic activity and, by extension, the internal conditions of our planet in the past (Tarduno et al. 2014). A combination of paleomagnetic and present-day magnetic measurements therefore allow us to study the long-term and large-scale evolution of our planet over billions of years; this method could also potentially allow us to predict how it may behave in the future

Constraints on asteroid magnetic field evolution and the radii of meteorite parent bodies from thermal modelling

Paleomagnetic measurements of ancient terrestrial and extraterrestrial samples indicate that numerous planetary bodies generated magnetic fields through core dynamo activity during the early solar system. The existence, timing, intensity and stability of these fields are governed by the internal transfer of heat throughout their parent bodies. Thus, paleomagnetic records preserved in natural samples can contain key information regarding the accretion and thermochemical history of the rocky bodies in our solar system. However, models capable of predicting these field properties across the entire active lifetime of a planetary core that could relate the processes occurring within these bodies to features in these records and provide such information are limited. Here, we perform asteroid thermal evolution models across suites of radii, accretion times and thermal diffusivities with the aim of predicting when fully and partially differentiated asteroids generated magnetic fields. We find that dynamo activity in both types of asteroid is delayed until ∼4.5-5.5 Myr after calcium-aluminium-rich inclusion formation due to the partitioning of 26Al into the silicate portion of the body during differentiation and large early surface heat fluxes, followed by a brief period (<12.5 Myr for bodies with radii <500 km) of thermally-driven dynamo activity as heat is convected from the core across a partially-molten magma ocean. We also expect that gradual core solidification produced compositionally-driven dynamo activity in these bodies, the timing of which could vary by tens to hundreds of millions of years depending on the S concentration of the core and the radius of the body. There was likely a pause in core cooling and dynamo activity following the cessation of convection in the magma ocean. Our predicted periods of magnetic field generation and quiescence match eras of high and low paleointensities in the asteroid magnetic field record compiled from paleomagnetic measurements of multiple meteorites, providing the possible origins of the remanent magnetisations carried by these samples. We also compare our predictions to paleomagnetic results from different meteorite groups to constrain the radii of the angrite, CV chondrite, H chondrite, IIE iron meteorite and Bjürbole (L/LL chondrite) parent bodies and identify a likely nebula origin for the remanent magnetisation carried by the CM chondrites