气候变化领域集成服务门户(CCPortal): Pluto’s ocean is capped and insulated by gas hydrates

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DOI	10.1038/s41561-019-0369-8
	Pluto’s ocean is capped and insulated by gas hydrates
	Kamata S.; Nimmo F.; Sekine Y.; Kuramoto K.; Noguchi N.; Kimura J.; Tani A.
发表日期	2019
ISSN	17520894
卷号	12 期号:6
英文摘要	Many icy Solar System bodies possess subsurface oceans. On Pluto, Sputnik Planitia’s location near the equator suggests the presence of a subsurface ocean and a locally thinned ice shell. To maintain an ocean, Pluto needs to retain heat inside. On the other hand, to maintain large variations in its thickness, Pluto’s ice shell needs to be cold. Here we show, by thermal evolution and viscous relaxation calculations, that the presence of a thin layer of clathrate hydrates (gas hydrates) at the base of the ice shell can explain both the long-term survival of the ocean and the maintenance of shell thickness contrasts. Clathrate hydrates act as a thermal insulator, preventing the ocean from completely freezing while keeping the ice shell cold and immobile. The most likely clathrate guest gas is methane, derived from precursor bodies and/or cracking of organic materials in the hot rocky core. Nitrogen molecules initially contained and/or produced later in the core would probably not be trapped as clathrate hydrates, instead supplying the nitrogen-rich surface and atmosphere. The formation of a thin clathrate hydrate layer cap to a subsurface ocean may be an important generic mechanism to maintain long-lived subsurface oceans in relatively large but minimally heated icy satellites and Kuiper belt objects. © 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
语种	英语
scopus关键词	capping; clathrate; cracking (fracture); gas hydrate; insulation; Pluto; solar system; thermal evolution
来源期刊	Nature Geoscience
文献类型	期刊论文
条目标识符	http://gcip.llas.ac.cn/handle/2XKMVOVA/124651
作者单位	Creative Research Institution, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan; Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA, United States; Earth-Life Science Institute, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan; Department of Cosmosciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan; Graduate School of Technology, Industrial and Social Sciences, Tokushima University, Tokushima, Japan; Department of Earth and Space Science, Osaka University, Toyonaka, Japan; Department of Human Environmental Science, Kobe University, Kobe, Japan; Department of Earth and Planetary, Sciences, Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Kamata S.,Nimmo F.,Sekine Y.,等. Pluto’s ocean is capped and insulated by gas hydrates[J],2019,12(6).
APA	Kamata S..,Nimmo F..,Sekine Y..,Kuramoto K..,Noguchi N..,...&Tani A..(2019).Pluto’s ocean is capped and insulated by gas hydrates.Nature Geoscience,12(6).
MLA	Kamata S.,et al."Pluto’s ocean is capped and insulated by gas hydrates".Nature Geoscience 12.6(2019).