Sediment-moving winds and abrasion on Titan: Implications for yardangs

Titan’s surface is expected to have a wide variety of sediments available due to both to aeolian and fluvial processes and to the organics that fall out of the atmosphere. As the vast dune fields that almost encircle Titan’s equator indicate, Titan’s near surface winds are sufficient to saltate particles. It is perhaps unsurprising then that putative yardangs – extended linear features carved by wind-mobilized sediment – have been found with Cassini RADAR data. However, few such candidates have been identified and are only found in the midlatitudes, a terrain whose geological characteristics (e.g. provenance, grain size distribution, composition) are still generally unknown. Therefore, to provide new insight into the possibility of yardang formation on Titan, we investigate the erodibility of Titan-relevant materials under plausible mid-latitude conditions. We found the most favorable conditions for abrasion in our study are created by small (≈100μm diameter) particles with weak cohesion and weak (water–ice) targets; particle density is not a controlling factor. •Sediments with the smallest diameters estimated for Titan sand (∼100μm) are the most effective abraders modeled.•Rates of abrasion on Titan are on the order of those on Mars and Earth.•Wind conditions in the midlatitudes differ from the equatorial region such that sediment mobilizing conditions may be more frequent over the course of a Titan year.