Volcano morphometry and volume scaling on Venus

Statistics

Scientific paper

Rate now

  [ 0.00 ] – not rated yet Voters 0   Comments 0

Details

Landforms, Lava, Planetary Crusts, Venus (Planet), Venus Surface, Volcanoes, Volcanology, Algorithms, Data Bases, Iceland, Shapes, Topography

Scientific paper

A broad variety of volcanic edifices have been observed on Venus. They ranged in size from the limits of resolution of the Magellan SAR (i.e., hundreds of meters) to landforms over 500 km in basal diameter. One of the key questions pertaining to volcanism on Venus concerns the volume eruption rate or VER, which is linked to crustal productivity over time. While less than 3 percent of the surface area of Venus is manifested as discrete edifices larger than 50 km in diameter, a substantial component of the total crustal volume of the planet over the past 0.5 Ga is related to isolated volcanoes, which are certainly more easily studied than the relatively diffusely defined plains volcanic flow units. Thus, we have focused our efforts on constraining the volume productivity of major volcanic edifices larger than 100 km in basal diameter. Our approach takes advantage of the topographic data returned by Magellan, as well as our database of morphometric statistics for the 20 best known lava shields of Iceland, plus Mauna Loa of Hawaii. As part of this investigation, we have quantified the detailed morphometry of nearly 50 intermediate to large scale edifices, with particular attention to their shape systematics. We found that a set of venusian edifices which include Maat, Sapas, Tepev, Sif, Gula, a feature at 46 deg S, 215 deg E, as well as the shield-like structure at 10 deg N, 275 deg E are broadly representative of the approx. 400 volcanic landforms larger than 50 km. The cross-sectional shapes of these 7 representative edifices range from flattened cones (i.e., Sif) similar to classic terrestrial lava shields such as Mauna Loa and Skjaldbreidur, to rather dome-like structures which include Maat and Sapas. The majority of these larger volcanoes surveyed as part of our study displayed cross-sectional topographies with paraboloidal shaped, in sharp contrast with the cone-like appearance of most simple terrestrial lava shields. In order to more fully explore the differences between large venusian edifices and volcanoes on the Earth and Mars, we developed a volume scaling algorithm which relies on conservation of volcano morphometry as basal diameter is varied.

No associations

LandOfFree

Say what you really think

Search LandOfFree.com for scientists and scientific papers. Rate them and share your experience with other people.

Rating

Volcano morphometry and volume scaling on Venus does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.

If you have personal experience with Volcano morphometry and volume scaling on Venus, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Volcano morphometry and volume scaling on Venus will most certainly appreciate the feedback.

Rate now

     

Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-1582152

  Search
All data on this website is collected from public sources. Our data reflects the most accurate information available at the time of publication.