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T. MacIntyre (Northern Arizona University), J.S. Kargel, B. Dalton, R. Clark (U.S. Geological Survey)
Galileo has produced abundant new data pertaining to the causes of Io's multicolored surface. Composition-- including minor impurities in elemental sulfur-- appears to be one of the important mechanisms responsible for color variations. Operating on the basis of insights from the reflectance spectra and composition of natural volcanogenic sulfur on Earth, we developed a lab project to investigate the effects on the color and spectral reflectance of sulfur caused by minor impurities. Initial results show that iron (as fine-grained inclusions of pyrite) produces green sulfur similar to that found naturally in some terrestrial volcanic crater lakes and somewhat similar also to Io's so-called "golf courses." Selenium and especially tellurium (chemically bonded or interacting with sulfur) produces markedly reddish or orange sulfur. Results of lab studies showing these effects will be presented. (See also abstract by Kargel et al., this volume.)
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: tjm@dana.ucc.nau.edu