© Paul K. Byrne/NASA/USGS, CC BY-ND
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.
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.
Planetary scientists like me have long known that Venus has a plethora of tectonic landforms. Some of these formations are long, thin belts where the crust has been pushed together to form ridges or pulled apart to form troughs and grooves. In many of these belts there's evidence that pieces of the crust have moved side to side, too.
Comment: For further insight into Venus, and its relatively recent arrival into the solar system, check out Pierre Lescaudron's fascinating article: The Seven Destructive Earth Passes of Comet Venus
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