Signatures of wave erosion in Titan's coasts

Area of Science:

• Planetary science
• Geology
• Fluid dynamics

Background:

• Titan's shorelines exhibit features suggesting past flooding of erosional landforms, like river valleys.
• The role of coastal erosion, potentially driven by wind-generated waves, in shaping Titan's shorelines remains uncertain.
• Existing frameworks for analyzing shoreline morphology to identify erosion mechanisms are limited, even for Earth.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and apply a quantitative framework for discerning coastal erosion mechanisms using shoreline morphology.
• To investigate the specific processes shaping the shorelines of Titan's hydrocarbon seas.

Main Methods:

• Combined landscape evolution models with measurements of shoreline shape from Earth.
• Applied the developed framework to analyze shoreline morphology data from Titan's seas.

Main Results:

• Titan's shorelines are most consistent with wave erosion acting on previously flooded landscapes.
• The findings suggest wave erosion is a more significant process than uniform erosion or lack of coastal alteration.
• Wave growth saturation at fetch lengths of tens of kilometers provides a plausible scenario for observed shorelines.

Conclusions:

• Wave erosion is a likely dominant process shaping Titan's hydrocarbon sea shorelines.
• The developed framework offers a new tool for comparative planetology of coastal evolution.
• Future research should focus on validating wave dynamics and their erosional impact on Titan.