Enceladus' Tiger Stripes as Frictional Faults: Effect on Stress and Heat Production.

We propose a new model of Enceladus' tiger stripes in which the ice shell is modeled as an elastic system with Coulomb‐type frictional interfaces subjected to periodic tidal loading. We find that the diurnal tides produce a complex pattern of stress anomalies, characterized by a length scale of tens of km and the peak values exceeding 100 kPa. Friction delays the response of the system to tidal loading and leads to an asymmetry between the compression and extension phases. This asymmetry results in additional stress, constant in time and comparable in magnitude to the cyclic stress. This static stress field is characterized by compression in the direction perpendicular to the faults and may influence the evolution of the south polar region on geological time scales. The total heat flow generated by friction is 0.1–1 GW, accounting for only a small fraction of the heat power emitted from the tiger stripes. Plain Language Summary: The tiger stripes are four sub‐parallel, linear depressions in the south polar region (SPR) of Saturn's moon Enceladus, which are known for their vapor plumes containing organic molecules. The nature of the tiger stripes is not fully understood and remains a subject of intense debate. Here, we propose a new model of the tiger stripes in which Enceladus' ice shell is modeled as an elastic system with frictional interfaces subjected to periodic tidal loading. We find that the diurnal tides produce a complex pattern of stress anomalies, characterized by a length scale of tens of km and the peak values exceeding 100 kPa. Friction delays the system's response to tidal loading and leads to an asymmetry between the compression and extension phases. This asymmetry results in an additional stress, which is constant in time and comparable in magnitude to the cyclic stress. The static stress field is characterized by compression in the direction perpendicular to the faults, and its magnitude is large enough to influence the evolution of the SPR on geological time scales. The total heat flow generated by friction is 0.1–1 GW, accounting for only a small fraction of the heat power emitted from the tiger stripes. Key Points: Friction on faults delays the response of the system to tidal loading and leads to an asymmetry between the compression and extension phaseThe asymmetry results in additional stress, which is constant in time and comparable in magnitude to the cyclic stress (10–100 kPa)The frictional heating does not exceed 1 GW in total and is mainly concentrated in the central parts of the tiger stripes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]