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Research Paper On Io

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Volcanology of Io Volcanos have played a colossal part in human history; mainly by destroying cities and killing the people in them. While Earth is volcanically active there are other locations that surpass it in activity. To find one of these places one must go through the Kuiper belt to the gas giant Jupiter. Jupiter, while the biggest planet in our solar system comes second to Saturn for the most amount of moons. There are sixty-three total moons and fifty-three of them have been officially named. Whether it be size or composition, they all vary greatly from one another. The four biggest, known as the Galilean moons, were named after the astronomer Galileo who discovered them over 400 years ago. Their names are Io, Europa, Ganymede, …show more content…

The different types of eruptions that come from the volcanoes that stretch across Io play a significant role in its volcanology. There are three popular types of eruptions that occur on Io. These are: flow dominated, explosion dominated, and Intra-patera eruptions. Flow dominated eruptions “produce extensive compound lava flow fields… similar to compound inflationary flows commonly observed on Hawaiian eruptions on Earth” (Lopes 2015). These flows make up a major terrain type on Io. Many of the major flows are produced by build ups of small breakouts of lava on top of older flows. They differ from the other popular eruptions because they can last for years, have a low output of energy, and can have flow fields larger than 300 kilometers. The opposite of this style of eruption is explosion dominated eruptions. Where “most of the energy of the eruption is directed into a short-lived, vigorous event that lasts days to weeks… can produce extensive pyroclastic deposits and lava flow fields, and typically a large (>200 km high) plume, thought to originate from the interaction of silicate magma with sulfurous volatiles” (Lopes 2015). These eruptions occur when magma deep within Io’s molten mantle reaches the surface and cause alterations in the near-infrared brightness. They also have the potential to cause colossal short lived changes around them. For example, in 1997 an eruption produced a 400 kilometer wide deposit of silicate and sulfur dioxide. The powerful eruption in recorded history was explosion dominated and observed by astronomers on February 22, 2001. The most common of the three eruption types, Intra-patera eruptions, “occur with or without associated plumes, and are thought to be lava lakes” (Lopes 2015). Generally they have flat floors and steep walls. Unlike features that are similar on Earth they are usually not located at the peak of a shield volcano. Their

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