Icy moon of Jupiter, Ganymede, shows evidence of past strike-slip faulting

A recently published study led by researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Manoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology reveals Ganymede, an icy moon of Jupiter, appears to have undergone complex periods of geologic activity, specifically strike-slip tectonism, as is seen in Earth's San Andreas fault. This is the first study to exhaustively consider the role of strike-slip tectonism in Ganymede's geologic history.

Plate tectonics is the process on Earth that has created many familiar large scale features—oceanic and continental crust, mountain ranges, mid-ocean ridges, for example—and phenomena such as earthquakes.

Continued...
Source

Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The solar system's largest moon, Ganymede, is captured here alongside the planet Jupiter in a color picture taken by NASA's Cassini spacecraft on Dec. 3, 2000.

Source / Image Courtesy

Credit: NASA and Cameron et al. (2018)

NASA's Voyager background imagery underlying Galileo high-resolution imagery of the Tiamat Sulcus region of Ganymede. Scale bar in lower right indicates distance.

Source / Image Courtesy

Ganymede is composed primarily of silicate rock and water ice. It is a fully differentiated body with an iron-rich, liquid core. A saltwater ocean is believed to exist nearly 200 km below Ganymede's surface, sandwiched between layers of ice.

Its surface comprises two main types of terrain. Dark regions, saturated with impact craters and dated to four billion years ago, cover about a third of the satellite. Lighter regions, crosscut by extensive grooves and ridges and only slightly less ancient, cover the remainder.

The cause of the light terrain's disrupted geology is not fully known, but was likely the result of tectonic activity brought about by tidal heating.

Ganymede is the only satellite in the Solar System known to possess a magnetosphere, likely created through convection within the liquid iron core. The meager magnetosphere is buried within Jupiter's much larger magnetic field and connected to it through open field lines

What Would Standing on Largest Moon Found Ganymede Feel Like?