Sulcus (planetology)
As sulcus (Latin for furrow, ditch), plural sulci , linear structures of furrows and channels are referred to in planetology . They occur most frequently in the icy moons of the outer planets, where they often form wide systems of parallel shallow trenches and can be several thousand km long.
In the early days of these celestial bodies they were formed by the horizontal displacement of parts of the crust and represent a kind of separating joint . The causes of this tectonics are predominantly tidal effects from the large, flattened gas planets , and occasionally also volcanic phenomena.
The bands of wider sulci often have different albedo , which makes them stand out clearly on photos of the spacecraft . Some run across the boundaries between old and younger regions, for example the Uruk Sulcus on Jupiter's moon Ganymede .
The shallow depth of many sulci is due to the porous crust material (mainly water ice with only a small amount of rock ), which partially filled the joints from below.
literature
- Patrick Moore et al .: Atlas of the Solar System (chapter Jupiter's moons). 465 pp., Herder-Verlag Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1986
- Heather Couper , Robert Dinwiddie et al .: The Planets. A journey through our solar system (Chapter Ganymede). 256 pp., Dorling Kindersley Verlag, Munich 2015
- R.Pappalardo, R.Neukum et al .: Grooved Terrain on Ganymede: First Results from Galileo High-Resolution Imaging . Icarus 135/1 , Elsevier 1998