Moons in the outer Solar System release heat as they orbit their host planets, creating intense volcanism and subsurface water oceans. However, few experimental constraints exist on the geodynamics of materials under moonlike conditions, limiting understanding of moon evolution and subsurface deformation. This talk discusses the importance of understanding moons from the microscale up, using case studies about Io's volcanoes, Enceladus' core, and brine infiltration into Europa's crust to show that geodynamic modeling based on laboratory data is essential for interpreting results from missions to the outer Solar System, and also for using moons as a comparative laboratory for fundamental Earth processes.
 

Speaker-recommended reading: Seltzer, C., Peč, M., Zimmerman, M. E., & Kohlstedt, D. L. (2023). Melt network reorientation and crystallographic preferred orientation development in sheared partially molten rocks. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 24, e2023GC010927. https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GC010927