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New paper alert! tl;dr: the seafloor of Europa is probably tectonically inert, meaning little to no active fracturing that could expose fresh rock to seawater. Without such water–rock reactions the prospect for there being life within Europa just took a big hit. A thread:

The original science question my co-author Christian and I asked was simply: What does the seafloor of Europa actually *look* like? This question came about because, although we can see Europa's icy exterior pretty well, we know virtually nothing of its interior. (3/n)

So we ran calculations widely used for rocks on Earth to figure out how strong the ocean floor might be, remembering that most of Europa is rock! Why? Because fractures are a GREAT way of exposing fresh rock to the ocean, driving chemical reactions for life. No fractures? No fresh rock. (4/n)

We figured out how strong the ocean floor is, and how that strength increases as you go deeper into the body. The blue and magenta lines mark out the strength of the (sub)seafloor rocks if you wanted to make normal or thrust fault, respectively. Turns out these rocks are fairly strong. (5/n)