[X] My Assistant

[belleraphon1]

All....

The Lakes and Seas of Titan: Observations From Cassini RADAR

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...27_Mitchell.pdf

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...RM_Mitchell.wav

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/multimedia/prod...nscript_raw.doc

Perhaps due to the Holidays, this was not noted before...

Enjoy

Craig

p.s. what fill 12/20/07 SAR reveal?

http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/events/tit...71220/index.cfm

"Cassini successfully completed its most recent Titan flyby on Dec. 20, 2007, and data are currently being analyzed. During this flyby, the radar instrument studied Titan's "deep south." This will allow scientists to contrast this region against what they found in the lake regions of the north polar area. The spacecraft went as far south as 70 degrees. The radar imaged areas of the Tsegihi region it had not yet seen, and got some overlap in coverage. New ground was covered south of the dune fields of Belet. "

[nprev]

Ha!!!! Knew you'd be all over it, Mike; important observation re juxtaposition of dunes over a polar dark patch, congrats!!!

So it does seem possible that lakes eventually become filled with Titanian sedimentary/precipitory products, or to use the technical term I coined in my last post, 'crap'. Perhaps there's a bit of a race between drying up (seasonally?) and choking up...

[tty]

So it does seem possible that lakes eventually become filled with Titanian sedimentary/precipitory products

Almost certainly true. That is what ultimately happens to all lakes here on Earth, and it is a rather fast process geologically speaking. Usually the lifetime of a lake can be measured in thousands or tens of thousands of years (that's why there are so many lakes up in the north woods and the northern prairies and almost none further south, up north the lake basins were scoured out by the ice only 15-20,000 years back). Only very deep lakes like Lake Baikal or Lake Ohrid last for a few million years.

Of course "geology" works much slower on Titan but I would expect lakes to ultimately fill in with gunk (or dune "sand") there too. New ones might be created by "karst" processes or tectonically.