Scientists confirm 2023 data that suggested active volcanism on Venus
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Scientists have now confirmed a 2023 paper that had found evidence in archival data from the Magellan orbiter that there was active volcanism on Venus. From the abstract of the new paper:
To investigate more widespread alterations that have occurred over time in the planet’s surface morphology, we compared radar images of the same regions observed from 1990 to 1992 with the Magellan spacecraft. We found variations in the radar backscatter from different volcanic-related flow features on the western flank of Sif Mons and in western Niobe Planitia. We suggest that these changes are most reasonably explained as evidence of new lava flows related to volcanic activities that took place during the Magellan spacecraft’s mapping mission with its synthetic-aperture radar.
The image to the right is a screen capture, annotated to post here, from a video computer animation created by the science team based on that Magellan data. The red areas are where the scientists detected lava flow changes on the flanks of the volcano Sif Mons. From the press release:
Using flows on Earth as a comparison, the researchers estimate new rock that was emplaced in both locations to be between 10 and 66 feet (3 and 20 meters) deep, on average. They also estimate that the Sif Mons eruption produced about 12 square miles (30 square kilometers) of rock — enough to fill at least 36,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The Niobe Planitia eruption produced about 17 square miles (45 square kilometers) of rock, which would fill 54,000 Olympic swimming pools. As a comparison, the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, Earth’s largest active volcano, produced a lava flow with enough material to fill 100,000 Olympic pools.
There is uncertainty of course with this result, due to the difficulty of analyzing radar data properly. Nonetheless, this result reinforces last year’s results, which saw evidence of changes between the two Magellan data sets in a different region near the volcanoes Ozza Mons and Maat Mons. It also reinforces previous work going back decades that has repeatedly suggested Venus was volcanically active.
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Click for original video
Scientists have now confirmed a 2023 paper that had found evidence in archival data from the Magellan orbiter that there was active volcanism on Venus. From the abstract of the new paper:
To investigate more widespread alterations that have occurred over time in the planet’s surface morphology, we compared radar images of the same regions observed from 1990 to 1992 with the Magellan spacecraft. We found variations in the radar backscatter from different volcanic-related flow features on the western flank of Sif Mons and in western Niobe Planitia. We suggest that these changes are most reasonably explained as evidence of new lava flows related to volcanic activities that took place during the Magellan spacecraft’s mapping mission with its synthetic-aperture radar.
The image to the right is a screen capture, annotated to post here, from a video computer animation created by the science team based on that Magellan data. The red areas are where the scientists detected lava flow changes on the flanks of the volcano Sif Mons. From the press release:
Using flows on Earth as a comparison, the researchers estimate new rock that was emplaced in both locations to be between 10 and 66 feet (3 and 20 meters) deep, on average. They also estimate that the Sif Mons eruption produced about 12 square miles (30 square kilometers) of rock — enough to fill at least 36,000 Olympic-size swimming pools. The Niobe Planitia eruption produced about 17 square miles (45 square kilometers) of rock, which would fill 54,000 Olympic swimming pools. As a comparison, the 2022 eruption of Mauna Loa in Hawaii, Earth’s largest active volcano, produced a lava flow with enough material to fill 100,000 Olympic pools.
There is uncertainty of course with this result, due to the difficulty of analyzing radar data properly. Nonetheless, this result reinforces last year’s results, which saw evidence of changes between the two Magellan data sets in a different region near the volcanoes Ozza Mons and Maat Mons. It also reinforces previous work going back decades that has repeatedly suggested Venus was volcanically active.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
It may be slightly misleading to think of Venus as volcanically active in the terrestrial sense, because the top of the crust is at 800 degrees Fahrenheit everywhere (and it only gets hotter as you go down from there); for comparison the Earthly mantle transition zone is around 1100 degrees. So the whole Venusian crust is sort of soft and sludgy and mantle-like, offering little resistance to low-intensity lava flows that could thus be far more common than on Earth despite the lack of a rotating liquid core or a large satellite’s tidal forces churning the deep mantle.