Extended Rift‐Associated Volcanism in Ganis Chasma, Venus Detected From Magellan Radar Emissivity

Abstract

The diameter of Venus predicts that it should, like Earth, be volcanically active today (e.g., Head & Solomon, 1981). Radar images of the surface collected during the Magellan mission (1990)(1991)(1992)(1993)(1994) did not identify any morphological evidence of recent volcanic activity. Nonetheless, recent and ongoing volcanic activity on Venus is suggested by other multiple independent lines of evidence. Pioneer Venus Orbiter (PV, 1978(PV, -1986 and Venus Express (VEx, 2005(VEx, -2014 missions gathered more than 30 years of atmospheric measurements searching for evidence of possible volcanic eruptions. Both missions revealed fluctuations in sulfur dioxide (SO 2 ) that are possibly associated with volcanic outgassing on Venus (

Geologically Recent Areas as One Key Target for Identifying Active Volcanism on Venus

“…For this commentary article, no new data were used. The data we commented in this article come from the previously published research by Brossier et al (2022), on this journal.…”

“…In this way, dielectric measurements on Venus can be used as a potential chronometer to constrain the age of surface materials. Brossier et al (2022) analyze the radar emissivity excursions of seven different sites at Ganis Chasma, four of which already studied by Shalygin et al (2015) using Venus Monitoring Camera (VMC) data of the Venus Express, while other three sites were selected separately for comparison (Figure 1). Their results show that for a given (range of) altitude and temperature, the emissivity excursions do not occur uniformly over all the analyzed surface materials (Figure 2).…”

“…Temperatures are given by the Vega 2 lander data(Brossier et al, 2020;Lorenz et al, 2018;Seiff, 1987). FromBrossier et al (2022).…”

“…As a first analog site for Project AVENGERS, preliminary studies are currently being conducted on Mount Etna (D'Incecco et al, 2022;Eggers et al, 2022), one of the most active and well monitored volcanoes on Earth. Building off this, studying active and recently active volcanism on the Earth is vital to test models for Venus exploration, such as Brossier et al (2022) in order to be able to constrain potentially active volcanism and tectonism on Venus with the future missions due to arrive and make repeated measurements over the same surface previously measured by Magellan. (Brossier et al, 2020;Lorenz et al, 2018;Seiff, 1987).…”

The geologically recent areas as one key target for identifying active volcanism on Venus.

“…To this regard, Project "Analogs for VENus's GEologically Recent Temperatures are given by the Vega 2 lander data (Brossier et al, 2020;Lorenz et al, 2018;Seiff, 1987). From Brossier et al (2022).…”