Estimates on the Frequency of Volcanic Eruptions on Venus

Abstract

There is little question that Venus is a volcanic world-that is, that the second largest rocky planet in the Solar System has hosted major volcanic activity, and its surface is composed predominantly of volcanic materials. When the Soviet Union's Venera 8 landed on the Venus surface, the spacecraft returned compositional data pointing to a silicic rock type at that landing site (Vinogradov et al., 1973). Alkaline and tholeiitic basaltic compositions, respectively, were found at the landing sites of the Venera 13 and 14 missions (Surkov et al., 1983), suggesting that much of the surface of Venus is predominantly basaltic (although Vega 2 lander measurements pointed to an anorthosite-norite-troctolite composition at its landing site: Surkov et al., 1985). Venera 13 and 14 also returned color images from the surface, revealing a landscape of thinly stratified rocks consistent with lithified accumulations of volcanic ash or sediment (Bazilevskii et al., 1983;Byrne et al., 2020).The NASA Magellan mission ultimately yielded the first high-resolution (∼100 m/pixel) global radar image mosaic of the planet, as well as altimetric and emissivity datasets (e.g., Saunders et al., 1990), and showed Venus to be a world with discernable lava flows, major rift zones, thousands of shield volcanoes (Crumpler et al., 1993), and domes and shield fields (i.e., volcanic fields) (Ivanov & Head, 2013), as well as a range of volcanotectonic landforms including arachnoids, novae, calderas, and distinctive, quasi-circular corona structures that feature high degrees of localized (and generally extensional) strain (Stofan et al., 1992). The planet also has a dearth of impact craters less than 25 km in diameter and none less than 3 km across (Phillips et al., 1991). Crater statistics derived

The Habitability of Venus and a Comparison to Early Earth

“…They could be very low, <<1 km 3 , in agreement with the minimal effect of volcanism on randomly distributed impact craters (Basilevsky and Head, 1997;Schaber et al, 1992); moderately lower than on Earth (∼1 km 3 /yr) (Head et al, 1991;Phillips et al, 1992); or similar (∼10 km 3 /yr; Fegley and Prinn 1989;Bullock and Grinspoon 2001) to Earth's production rates (e.g. Byrne and Krishnamoorthy, 2021). Long-term numerical modelling of mantle dynamics offers a reasonable solution for estimating a range of possible outgassing rates from volcanic production, keeping in mind the lack of hard constraints on values before 1 Ga, or on the state of Venus' mantle.…”

Mantle Degassing Lifetimes through Galactic Time and the Maximum Age Stagnant-lid Rocky Exoplanets can Support Temperate Climates

“…That is, it should not exhibit significant enough volcanism and outgassing today to support a temperate climate (> 10% Earth's present rate). There is some evidence, however, for volcanism and outgassing in the last < 1 Myr (Smrekar et al 2010;Filiberto et al 2020;Byrne & Krishnamoorthy 2022), likely plume related (Gülcher et al 2020). If corroborated, this would not necessarily invalidate the model predictions, as rates of Venusian volcanism are probably too low to support outgassing rates above our threshold rate of degassing to support a temperate climate.…”

Mantle Degassing Lifetimes through Galactic Time and the Maximum Age Stagnant-lid Rocky Exoplanets Can Support Temperate Climates

“…That is, it should not exhibit significant enough volcanism and outgassing today to support a temperate climate (>10% of Earth's present rate). There is some evidence, however, for volcanism and outgassing in the last <1 Myr (Smrekar et al 2010;Filiberto et al 2020;Byrne & Krishnamoorthy 2022), likely plumerelated (Gülcher et al 2020). If corroborated, this would not necessarily invalidate the model predictions, as the rates of Venusian volcanism are probably too low to support outgassing rates above our threshold rate of degassing to support a temperate climate.…”