Scientists have identified 37 volcanic structures on Venus that appear to have been recently active, and probably still are today, painting the picture of a geologically dynamic planet and not a dormant world as previously thought.
The research focused on ring-shaped structures called coronae, caused by a stream of hot rock from deep within the planet, and provided compelling evidence of recent widespread tectonic and magmatic activity on the surface of Venus, the researchers said.
Lacking the plate tectonics that gradually reshape the Earth’s surface, many scientists had long thought that Venus was essentially geologically inactive, having been so for the past 500 million years.
“Our work shows that some of that interior heat can still reach the surface even today. Clearly Venus is not as geologically dead or inactive as previously thought, ”said Anna Gülcher, a terrestrial and planetary scientist at the Zurich Institute of Geophysics, and lead author of the research published in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The researchers determined the type of geological features that could exist only in a newly active corona, a telltale trench surrounding the structure. They then scoured radar images of Venus taken by NASA’s Magellan spacecraft in the 1990s to find crowns that fit the bill. Of 133 coronae examined, 37 appear to have been active in the last 2m to 3m years, a blink in geological time.
“In my opinion, many of these structures are really active today,” said Laurent Montesi, a geophysicist at the University of Maryland and co-author of the study.
Crowns are essentially fields of lava flows and major faults that span a large circular area. Many of the 37 reside within a gigantic ring in the planet’s southern hemisphere, including a colossal corona called Artemis, which has a diameter of 1,300 miles (2,100 km).
Venus, Earth’s closest and slightly smaller planetary neighbor, is covered in clouds of sulfuric acid and has surface temperatures high enough to melt lead.
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