Seismo-acoustic coupling in the deep atmosphere of Venus

The extreme conditions at the surface of Venus pose a challenge for monitoring the planet's seismic activity using long-duration landed probes. One alternative is using balloon-based sensors to detect venusquakes from the atmosphere. This study aims to assess the efficiency with which seismic motion is coupled as atmospheric acoustic waves across Venus's surface. It is, therefore, restricted to the immediate neighborhood of the crust-atmosphere interface. In order to account for supercritical conditions near the surface, the Peng-Robinson equation of state is used to obtain the acoustic sound speed and attenuation coefficient in the lower atmosphere. The energy transported across the surface from deep and shallow sources is shown to be a few orders of magnitude larger than on Earth, pointing to a better seismo-acoustic coupling. For a more realistic scenario, simulations were made of the acoustic field generated in the lower atmosphere by the ground motion arising from a vertical array of subsurface point-force sources. The resulting transmission loss maps show a strong epicentral cone accompanied by contributions from leaky surface waves. Results at 0.1 Hz and 1 Hz confirm that the width of the epicentral cone is larger at lower frequencies.

Rheological decoupling at the Moho and implication to Venusian tectonics

Plate tectonics is largely responsible for material and heat circulation in Earth, but for unknown reasons it does not exist on Venus. The strength of planetary materials is a key control on plate tectonics because physical properties, such as temperature, pressure, stress, and chemical composition, result in strong rheological layering and convection in planetary interiors. Our deformation experiments show that crustal plagioclase is much weaker than mantle olivine at conditions corresponding to the Moho in Venus. Consequently, this strength contrast may produce a mechanical decoupling between the Venusian crust and interior mantle convection. One-dimensional numerical modeling using our experimental data confirms that this large strength contrast at the Moho impedes the surface motion of the Venusian crust and, as such, is an important factor in explaining the absence of plate tectonics on Venus.

Venus reconsidered

The Magellan imagery shows that Venus has a crater abundance equivalent to a surface age of 300 million to 500 million years and a crater distribution close to random. Hence, the tectonics of Venus must be quiescent compared to those of Earth in the last few 100 million years. The main debate is whether the decline in tectonic activity on Venus is closer to monotonic or episodic, with enhanced tectonism and volcanism yet to come. The former hypothesis implies that most radioactive heat sources have been differentiated upward; the latter, that they have remained at depth. The low level of activity in the last few 100 million years inferred from imagery favors the monotonic hypothesis; some chemical evidence, particularly the low abundance of radiogenic argon, favors the episodic. A problem for both hypotheses is the rapid decline of thermal and tectonic activity some 300 million to 500 million years ago. The nature of the convective instabilities that caused the decline, and their propagation, are unclear.

Global Variations in the Geoid/Topography Admittance of Venus

Global representations of geoid height and topography are used to map variations in the geoid/topography ratio (admittance) of Venus. The admittance values are permissive of two mutually exclusive models for convection-driven topography. In the first, compressive highland plateaus are expressions of present mantle downwelling, broad volcanic rises are expressions of mantle upwelling, and lowlands overlie regions with no substantial vertical motion in the mantle. In the second, compressive highland plateaus are remnants of an earlier regime of high crustal strain, and most other long-wavelength topographic variations arise from normal convective tractions at the base of the lithosphere.

Fundamental Issues in the Geology and Geophysics of Venus

A number of important and currently unresolved issues in the global geology and geophysics of Venus will be addressable with the radar imaging, altimetry, and gravity measurements now forthcoming from the Magellan mission. Among these are the global volcanic flux and the rate of formation of new crust; the global heat flux and its regional variations; the relative importance of localized hot spots and linear centers of crustal spreading to crustal formation and tectonics; and the planform of mantle convection on Venus and the nature of the interactions among interior convective flow, near-surface deformation and magmatism.

Venus Tectonics: Initial Analysis from Magellan

Radar imaging and altimetry data from the Magellan mission have revealed a diversity of deformational features at a variety of spatial scales on the Venus surface. The plains record a superposition of different episodes of deformation and volcanism; strain is both areally distributed and concentrated into zones of extension and shortening. The common coherence of strain patterns over hundreds of kilometers implies that many features in the plains reflect a crustal response to mantle dynamic processes. Ridge belts and mountain belts represent successive degrees of lithospheric shortening and crustal thickening; the mountain belts also show widespread evidence for extension and collapse both during and following crustal compression. Venus displays two geometrical patterns of concentrated lithospheric extension: quasi-circular coronae and broad rises with linear rift zones; both are sites of significant volcanism. No long, large-offset strike-slip faults have been observed, although limited local horizontal shear is accommodated across many zones of crustal shortening. In general, tectonic features on Venus are unlike those in Earth's oceanic regions in that strain typically is distributed across broad zones that are one to a few hundred kilometers wide, and separated by stronger and less deformed blocks hundreds of kilometers in width, as in actively deforming continental regions on Earth.

Venus: A Contrast in Evolution to Earth

Of the planets, Venus and Earth are by far the most similar in primary properties, yet they differ markedly in secondary properties. A great impact into Earth is believed to have created its moon and removed its atmosphere; the lack of such an impact into Venus apparently led to a greatly differing atmospheric evolution. The lack of an ocean on Venus prevents the recycling of volatiles and inhibits subduction, so that its crust is probably more voluminous than Earth's, although distorted and quite variable in thickness. Venus's upper mantle appears to be depleted in both volatiles and energy sources because, in addition to the lack of volatile recycling, melts of mantle rocks are more dense than their solid matrix at pressures above 8 gigapascals and hence sink if they occur at depths below 250 kilometers. Appreciable energy sources persist at great depths to sustain the few great mountain complexes. The greatest current problem is reconciling the likelihood of a voluminous crust with indications of considerable strength at shallow depths of 20 to 100 kilometers.