Creep and the characteristic length scale of strain-energy dissipation in polycrystalline ice; implications for tidal dissipation

Abstract:

Many outer planet satellites possess thick, icy crusts over an ocean of liquid water. Maintaining an ocean over geologic time requires internal heating by tidal dissipation, but the mechanisms of tidal dissipation in ice are poorly resolved. The physics of dissipation in the geological context (the “high temperature background”) are dominated by stress-induced chemical diffusion, which has a distinct length-scale dependence that is frequently cited as the grain size. The experiments of McCarthy [2009], however, measured attenuation simultaneously with steady-state creep in polycrystalline ice and showed distinctly grain size-insensitive dissipation. These data can instead be normalized by the steady-state creep stress, implying that the deformation-induced microstructure dominates the length scale of diffusion. Thus, the relationship between deformation-induced microstructure and dissipation is critical to understanding how tidal dissipation affects (or, perhaps, effects) the geodynamics of icy satellites.

To characterize the role of deformation microstructure in strain-energy dissipation, we conducted creep and stress-reduction experiments on polycrystalline ice. The stress (0.5–5 MPa), grain size (30 & 245 μm) and temperature (233K) of the experiments place our specimens in the rheological regimes of grain boundary sliding (geometrically accommodated by basal glide) or dislocation creep, both of which accrue significant plastic strain by the motion of lattice dislocations. Stress-reductions allow a specific deformation-induced microstructure—that produced in steady-state creep—to be probed for its effective viscosity (or “hardness”) at a variety of stresses. This “constant-hardness creep compliance” is affected by deviatoric stress, but not by grain size, confirming a characteristic length scale for relaxation that is dictated by deformation. The microstructures of deformed samples, analyzed via cryogenic electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) and reflected light microscopy, suggest that the stress-sensitive microstructural feature that dominates the length scale of diffusion may be the dislocation structure of the grain boundaries proper.