Venus Volcanism (IMAGE)
Caption
This perspective view of the geology of Venus superposed on topography shows a broad topographic rise (Atla Regio) in the center (red, with radiating purple spokes) and surrounding volcanic plains (green and blue).
The large Venus volcano Ozza Mons (red, center) is several hundreds of miles across. Radiating from this rise are numerous tectonic rift zones (mapped in purple), regions of stretched and faulted crust of Venus. Although geologically relatively recent in the 4.5 billion year history of Venus, these terrains could be many hundreds of million years old and no longer active.
New images and measurements from the European Space Agency Venus Express Camera, however, show evidence that parts of the rift zones are the locations of active volcanism, providing compelling evidence that Venus in general, and the rift zones in particular, continue to be sites of volcanic and tectonic activity well into the modern era.
In this image, color data was obtained from the global geological map of Venus (Ivanov & Head, 2011), texture data was acquired from Magellan Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) Left-Look FMAP (full resolution radar map) global mosaic, both draped over Magellan Global Topography data.
Ivanov, M. A., and J. W. Head III (2011), Global geological map of Venus, Planet. Space Sci., 59, 1559-1600, doi: 10.1016/j.pss.2011.07.008.
Credit
Ivanov/Head/Dickson/Brown University
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