Seminar

On Venus, there are distinctive tectonic highlands of tessera terrain observed from the topographic data. Continental size Ishtar Terra and Aphrodite Terra are the two main highland regions, with some another smaller highland area, such as Alpha Regio and Tellus Tessera. Venus has an evenly young surface recently under stagnant lid mode, and the formation of these highland is unknown. However, there are seven hypotheses proposed from previous mapping works trying to accounted for the tectonic highland formation. These models have different predictions about the mountain bounding fault, surface deformation, shape and structure of the highlands, and associated volcanism. To study the viability of various tectonic models, I am constraining the approaches include (1) geological mapping along the tectonics highland regions to test the above predictions; and (2) modeling of Venus’ lithosphere strength envelopes to study for the plastic failure in the lower crust.  These mapping and modeling data will provide more clues about the highland formation and the lithospheric evolution.