TITAN AS AN ICY MOON: EVIDENCE FOR CRYOVOLCANISM AND TECTONICS FROM CASSINI/VIMS. Jason

Like the other large icy moons, Titan is predicted on theo-retical grounds to posess a liquid water mantle beneath its icy crust [1]. There is as yet no more definitive empirical evidence for this subsurface ocean, unlike for Europa [2, 3], Ganymede [4], Callisto [3], and Enceladus [5]. Titan’s extended atmo-sphere limits Cassini passes to be at least 1000 kilometers above the surface, reducing the sensitivity of gravitational and magnetic experiments to subsurface conditions. The atmosphere inhibits surface imaging as well, by atmo-spheric absorption, haze scattering, and the closest-approach-altitude limitation. The best imaging resolution of Titan ob-tained to date was 400 meters/pixel by VIMS during the T20 (2006 October 20) flyby, and that only in a small footprint. Typical global resolutions are more like 10-20 km/pixel. The resolution discrepancy between available data covering Ti