Evidence of Titan's Climate History from Evaporite Distribution

Water-ice-poor, 5-$μ$m-bright material on Saturn's moon Titan has previously been geomorphologically identified as evaporitic. Here we present a global distribution of the occurrences of the 5-$μ$m-bright spectral unit, identified with Cassini's Visual Infrared Mapping Spectrometer (VIMS) and examined with RADAR when possible. We explore the possibility that each of these occurrences are evaporite deposits. The 5-$μ$m-bright material covers 1\% of Titan's surface and is not limited to the poles (the only regions with extensive, long-lived surface liquid). We find the greatest areal concentration to be in the equatorial basins Tui Regio and Hotei Regio. Our interpretations, based on the correlation between 5-$μ$m-bright material and lakebeds, imply that there was enough liquid present at some time to create the observed 5-$μ$m-bright material. We address the climate implications surrounding a lack of evaporitic material at the south polar basins: if the south pole basins were filled at some point in the past, then where is the evaporite?

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