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Evidence of Titan's Climate History from Evaporite Distribution

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Evidence of Titan's Climate History from Evaporite Distribution Icarus 243 (2014) 191–207 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Icarus journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/icarus Evidence of Titan’s climate history from evaporite distribution ⇑ Shannon M. MacKenzie a, , Jason W. Barnes a, Christophe Sotin b, Jason M. Soderblom c, Stéphane Le Mouélic d, Sebastien Rodriguez e, Kevin H. Baines f, Bonnie J. Buratti b, Roger N. Clark g, Phillip D. Nicholson h, Thomas B. McCord i a Department of Physics, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID 83844-0903, USA b Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91109, USA c Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences, MIT, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307, USA d Université de Nantes/UMR6112, Laboratoire de Planétologie et Géodynamique, 2 rue de la Houssinière, B.P. 92208, 44322 Nantes Cedex 3, France e Laboratoire AIM, Centre d’e~tude de Saclay, DAPNIA/Sap, Centre de l’orme des Mérisiers, bât. 709, 91191 Gif/Yvette Cedex, France f Space Science and Engineering Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1225 West Dayton St., Madison, WI 53706, USA g U.S. Geological Survey, Denver, CO 80225, USA h Cornell University, Astronomy Department, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA i Bear Fight Institute, P.O. Box 667, 22 Fiddler’s Road, Winthrop, WA 98862, USA article info abstract Article history: Water–ice-poor, 5-lm-bright material on Saturn’s moon Titan has previously been geomorphologically Received 9 March 2014 identified as evaporitic. Here we present a global distribution of the occurrences of the 5-lm-bright spec- Revised 12 August 2014 tral unit, identified with Cassini’s Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) and examined with Accepted 13 August 2014 RADAR when possible. We explore the possibility that each of these occurrences are evaporite deposits. Available online 16 September 2014 The 5-lm-bright material covers 1% of Titan’s surface and is not limited to the poles (the only regions with extensive, long-lived surface liquid). We find the greatest areal concentration to be in the equatorial Keywords: basins Tui Regio and Hotei Regio. Our interpretations, based on the correlation between 5-lm-bright Titan material and lakebeds, imply that there was enough liquid present at some time to create the observed Titan, surface Spectroscopy 5-lm-bright material. We address the climate implications surrounding a lack of evaporitic material at Infrared observations the south polar basins: if the south pole basins were filled at some point in the past, then where is the Geological processes evaporite? Ó 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction (Stofan et al., 2007; Hayes et al., 2008; Sotin et al., 2012), to fluvial features thought to be drainage networks (e.g., Lorenz et al., 2008a; Titan, unique among other satellites in our Solar System, has a Lunine et al., 2008; Burr et al., 2009, 2013; Langhans et al., 2012). thick atmosphere in which a volatile (methane, though ethane is The equatorial region, however, is characterized by expansive dune thought to also play an important role) precipitates and evaporates fields (e.g. Elachi et al., 2006; Soderblom et al., 2007; Lunine et al., in the same fashion as water in Earth’s hydrological cycle (Roe, 2008; Radebaugh et al., 2008; Rodriguez et al., 2014), intermittent 2012). Our understanding of Titan’s surface and climate has mountain chains (e.g., Radebaugh et al., 2007; Cook et al., 2014), evolved from the once widely expected global surface ocean and a noticeable lack of permanent surface liquid (but see thought to sustain the photolytic processes in the atmosphere Griffith et al. (2012)). Rain has been observed to wet the midlati- (e.g., Lunine et al., 1983; Flasar, 1983) to a world only sparsely cov- tude and near-equatorial surface (Turtle et al., 2011a), but standing ered by liquid deposits but hosting a collection of strikingly Earth- bodies similar in extent and stability to the polar lakes have yet to like surface morphologies (e.g., dunes and channels) thanks to data be conclusively identified. The most equator-ward lake candidates, now available from Cassini-Huygens. These observations reveal Sionscaig and Urmia, are located between 39°S and 42°S and, while Titan to be generally wet at the poles and dry at the equator. hypothesized to have standing liquid, are yet to be confirmed as At the poles, Titan’s liquid bodies range from seas (surface area either long-lived or ephemeral (Vixie et al., 2014). Mitchell greater than 100,000 km2, only in the north) to smaller lakes (2008) were able to reproduce a dry equatorial climate with a global circulation model (GCM) where a limited reservoir of meth- ane exchanges between the atmosphere and surface. ⇑ Corresponding author. E-mail address: [email protected] (S.M. MacKenzie). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.icarus.2014.08.022 0019-1035/Ó 2014 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. 192 S.M. MacKenzie et al. / Icarus 243 (2014) 191–207 And yet, sizable volumes of liquid are still thought to have also observed ephemeral lakes in the south polar region. These played an important role in forming the equatorial region. As Huy- dry beds imply that the distribution of Titan’s liquid is not static. gens discovered during its descent to the titanian surface on Janu- Moore and Howard (2010) propose that the landscape elements ary 14, 2005, fluvial features such as rounded cobbles, channels, with crenulated margins and small lacustrine features similar to and valleys also dot the equatorial landscape (Tomasko et al., those identified by Hayes et al. (2008, 2011) observed in RADAR 2005). The subsurface structure controlling fluvial drainage net- images of Tui and Hotei Regiones indicate that the previous pres- works in southwestern Xanadu (Burr et al., 2009) agrees with the ence of liquid, i.e. that the two equatorial features may be fossil wind flow derived from aeolian driven dune morphology (Lorenz seas. Thus, because the small lacustrine features observed within and Radebaugh, 2009). Rainfall has been proposed as the source Tui and Hotei would require long-lived surface liquid for their cre- the liquid responsible for carving fluvial features (Lorenz and ation, there seems to be evidence for a previous global liquid dis- Lunine, 2005; Turtle et al., 2011b). While storms have been tribution that differs from what is presently observed. observed in the equatorial region (Turtle et al., 2011a), Cassini The 5-lm-bright VIMS spectral unit has been observed on Titan has yet to directly observe actively flowing channels. The average since the first Cassini flybys where Tui Regio is clearly differenti- global rainfall on Titan has been suggested to be 1 cm/yr ated from other surface features (Barnes et al., 2005). However, (Lorenz and Lunine, 1996; Rannou et al., 2006), but such a low rate from observations of a region of small lakes and dry lake beds by could be reconciled with the observed fluvial features if precipita- VIMS during T69 (2010 June 5), Barnes et al. (2011) established tion were to occur in intense but infrequent storms (‘‘methane the connection between lakebeds and 5-lm-bright material: this monsoons’’ akin to what terrestrial deserts experience though an unique spectral unit coincided with the shores of filled lakes and order of magnitude smaller (Jaumann et al., 2008; Schneider the bottoms of dry lakes identified by RADAR (Hayes et al., et al., 2012)). 2008). Within this small region, there are also examples of dry Clouds have been frequently observed in the active atmosphere and filled lakes that do not exhibit a 5-lm-bright signature. of Titan, ranging from the enormous winter polar vortex, to bands Barnes et al. (2011) demonstrated how evaporite formation would of tropospheric clouds around certain latitudes (e.g. Griffith, 2009; be consistent with these observations of the water–ice poor, Hirtzig et al., 2009; Rodriguez et al., 2009, 2011; Brown et al., 2010; uniquely 5-lm-bright material: the compounds making up the Le Mouélic et al., 2012), to the low lying fog (Brown et al., 2009). deposits would have re-crystallized upon solute evaporation Stratospheric and high tropospheric clouds have been deduced to (accounting for the uniquely bright, water–ice poor spectrum) be composed of methane and ethane, but fog is necessarily made and the formation process would only occur in saturated solutions of methane alone (Brown et al., 2009). Precipitation has been indi- (explaining the spectral differences between such geographically rectly observed after cloud coverage via the surface darkening, close lakes and lakebeds). While we prefer this evaporitic brightening, and subsequent return to the original spectrum by interpretation for 5-lm-bright material formation, other, lacus- Cassini’s Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) (Barnes trine-related explanations could be possible, such as sedimentary et al., 2013) and Imaging Science Subsystem (ISS) (Turtle et al., deposits forming at the bottom of lakebeds. Thus, we discuss the 2009, 2011a; Barnes et al., 2013). 5-lm-bright material as ‘‘evaporite candidates’’ to reinforce the The present distribution of Titan’s lakes is asymmetric: there connection between lakebeds and 5-lm-bright material for ease are more in number and extent at the north pole than at the south of comprehension. (Aharonson et al., 2009). In the north, for example, the largest body In this paper, we identify all other examples of the 5-lm-bright is Kraken Mare, a sea covering 400,000 km2 (Turtle et al., 2009), spectral unit in the VIMS data. While brightness at 5 lm alone is while in the south, the largest is Ontario Lacus which covers only not diagnostic enough to say definitively that an observed signa- 15,000 km2 (Hayes et al., 2010). Global Circulation Models (GCMs) ture is from specifically evaporitically formed material, the have found that some kind of seasonal exchange or link between strength of the geomorphological correlation between lakebeds the north and south poles may be taking place (e.g., Tokano, and this spectral unit (first demonstrated by Barnes et al.
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