Grooves represent the evidence of tectonic activity that deformed Ganymede surface during its geologic evolution. In this work, we investigate the main characteristics of Ganymede’s groove populations on four different areas located at the equatorial region of the satellite (Uruk Sulcus, Babylon Sulci, Phrygia Sulcus and Mysia Sulci). Specifically, we analyse i) the grooves length distribution to provide a framework for their evolution and ii) the grooves self-similar clustering to infer their vertical penetration inside Ganymede icy shell. For each dataset, we find that the grooves distribution is well fitted by an exponential-law and a power-law distribution depending on the structure length. This implies the presence of confined structures in a shallow layer of the icy crust (relatively shorter, exponentially-fitted structures) and crustal-scale structures that could theoretically reach the crust-ocean interface (relatively longer, power law-fitted structures). In addition, the existence of two exponential distributions for few datasets suggest that there could be two different system of structure confined within specific mechanical crust layers.

中文翻译：

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木卫三赤道沟分布：长度和自相似聚类分析

凹槽代表了在地质演化过程中使木卫三表面变形的构造活动的证据。在这项工作中，我们研究了位于卫星赤道区域四个不同区域（乌鲁克沟、巴比伦沟、弗里吉亚沟和密西亚沟）的木卫三沟种群的主要特征。具体来说，我们分析 i) 凹槽长度分布，为其演化提供框架；ii) 凹槽自相似聚类，以推断它们在木卫三冰壳内的垂直渗透。对于每个数据集，我们发现凹槽分布根据结构长度很好地符合指数定律和幂律分布。这意味着冰壳浅层中存在受限结构（相对较短、指数拟合结构）和理论上可以到达地壳-海洋界面的地壳尺度结构（相对较长、幂律拟合结构）。此外，少数数据集存在两种指数分布，这表明在特定的机械地壳层内可能存在两种不同的结构系统。