Chocolate tablet aspects of tectonics of Meshkenet Tessera on Venus

Abstract

The intrablock deformation of Meshkenet Tessera on Venus is mostly due to responses of the uppermost surface bedrock to tensional stresses. It is found that complex deformation structures within the highland blocks resemble those of formed in chocolate tablet boudinaging which has taken place a&r original parallel faulting and bar-like crustal block formation. The high-angle tessera structures with varying cross-cutting relations define styles and locations of multiphase deformation most evidently related to local relaxation of tessera topography. Series of progressive or superposed fracturing events with alternating fault directions took place at high angles during this relaxational deformation. Compressional ridges often surround these tesserae.

Formation of chocolate-tablet boudins: Results from scaled analogue models

“…He termed such boudins with rectangular plan-view chocolate tablet structure. Similar structures are described from natural rocks deformed in various conditions for different tectonic settings on Earth (Ramberg, 1955;Coe, 1959;Fyson, 1962;Ramsay, 1967;Schwerdtner and Clark, 1967;Crespo-Blanc, 1995;Casey et al, 1983;Tricart et al, 2004;Reber et al, 2010;Zulauf et al, 2011c;Marques et al, 2012) and from the Meshkenet Tessera on Venus (Raitala, 1996). Chocolatetablet boudins are frequently well developed in competent pyrite-rich layers of diagenetic origin contained in incompetent sediments (Casey et al, 1983;Ramsay and Huber, 1983: Figs.…”