Europa's Surface and Shallow Water: Ice Shell Activity and Implications For Habitability

Beneath the geologically complex ice shell of Europa, Jupiter’s innermost icy satellite, likely lies a vast, saline subsurface ocean that may hold conditions favorable for life. Key to that question is how processes in the ice shell, represented as a myriad of geologic features on the surface, facilitate material transport between the surface and subsurface ocean. The formation of the young, elliptically shaped surface disruptions, lenticulae and chaotic (chaos) terrain that range from < 10 km to > 1000 km diameter, may represent one such process.