Titan's changing lakes |
Titan's changing lakes |
Jan 29 2009, 07:22 PM
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#1
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
Today's big news?
http://ciclops.org/view/5471/CASSINI_FINDS...ILL_TITAN_LAKES Changes in the south polar region were announced late last year. Is there more to this story now?? |
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Oct 26 2009, 01:34 PM
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#2
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Senior Member Group: Members Posts: 3516 Joined: 4-November 05 From: North Wales Member No.: 542 |
Another morsel from the conference abstracts. Anything to do with timescales on Titan always grabs my attention. This one was hiding outwith the dedicated Titan sessions. Because of the difficulty of linking to these abstacts I'm going to try posting a series of short QUOTES from:
Geomorphic Analysis of North Polar Channel Networks on Titan, and Implications for Active Tectonics and Persistence of Relief Structures R. Cartwright1; J. A. Clayton "Assuming constant 1.5 m depth liquid hydrocarbon flow during the summer (wet) season, we estimated that roughly 19,800 Titan years are required to lower Basin A down to its minimum relief." "recent tectonic uplift could help explain why this region displays variable relief, as well as contorted and constricted channel networks" UNQUOTE If I understand correctly this implies that typically the relief confining Titan's lake basins only formed within the last million (Earth) years or so, or else the basins are continuously deepening themselves at a pace that matches erosional degradation of the topography. The timescale tallies quite well with the ages of terrestrial lakes, relatively few of which go back more that a million years. |
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