Planetary surface processes and tectonics

Lecture

Online (link will follow).

Sylabus

1. Geological processes on terrestrial planets and moons.

2. Surface temperature. Energy transport. Energy sources, accretional heat, tidal dissipation, radiogenic heat.

3. Description of deformation on various time scales. Elastic, anelastic, and viscous deformation. Deformation mechanisms and deformation maps. Impact and evolution of the grain size. Impact of melt and fluids on rheological properties. Material strength and material failure. Empirical relationships. Rheological structure of planets and moons.

4. Tectonics. Internal and external sources of tectonic stress. Lithosphere deformation, faults and fractures, and statistics.

5. Melting and magmatism. Volcanic surface features.

6. Impact craters. Impact crater morphology. Scaling of crater dimensions. Evolution of crater populations, dating planetary surface. Late Heavy Bombardment. Origin of the Moon.

7. Basic characteristics of planetary atmospheres. Impact of wind, water, and ice on observed features.

8. Observed tectonic features and surfaces on individual bodies: Mercury, Venus, Moon, Mars, small bodies, outer planet satellites, and the Pluto system.

Literature

• 1. dePater, J.J. Lissauer: Planetary Sciences, Cambridge University Press, 2001.

• 13. Dougherty, L. Esposito, S. Krimigis: Saturn from Cassini-Huygens. Springer 2009.

• H.J. Melosh: Planetary surface processes, Cambridge University Press, 2011.

• R.T. Pappalardo, W.B. McKinnon, K. Khurana: Europa. Univ. Arizona Press, Tuscon, 2009.

• 16. Schenk et al.: Enceladus and the icy moons of Saturn, Univ. Arizona Press, Tuscon, 2019.

• 7. Schubert et al. Treatise on Geophysics. Elsevier 2007, ISBN 978-0-444-52748-6

• T.R. Watters, R.A. Schultz: Planetary tectonics. Cambridge University Press, 2010.