Signs of Geological Activity Discovered on Venus - SciTechDaily

June 22, 2021.

New research suggests that Venus’ crust is broken into large blocks – the dark reddish–purple areas – that are surrounded by belts of tectonic structures shown in lighter yellow–red.

Much of the brittle, upper crust of Venus is broken into fragments that jostle and move – and the slow churning of Venus’ mantle beneath the surface might be responsible.

My colleagues and I arrived at this finding using decades-old radar data to explore how the surface of Venus interacts with the interior of the planet.

We describe it in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on June 21, 2021.

Researchers have hypothesized that – just like Earth’s mantle â€“ the mantle of Venus swirls with currents as it’s heated from below.

My colleagues and I modeled the sluggish but powerful movement of Venus’ mantle and showed that it is sufficiently forceful to fragment the upper crust everywhere we’ve found these lowland blocks.

Showing that Venus’ geological engine is still running would have huge implications for understanding the composition of the planet’s mantle, where and how volcanism might be taking place today and how the very crust itself is formed, destroyed and replaced.

Figuring that out would give us vital information on how the planet’s surface features reflect the geological turmoil within.

Solomon, 21 June 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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