Venus Might Have More Surface Geologic Activity Than Previously Believed

It is called an unexpected phenomenon Convection It helps to explain many of the other features of the volcano and Venus landscape.

The University of Washington, Professor Slava Solomatov of St. Louis, said:

“Our calculations suggest that convection is possible and likely is likely. If so, it gives us new insight into the evolution of the planet.”

Convection occurs when the heated material rises towards the surface of the planet, and the cold material sinks, creating a constant conveyor belt.

On Earth, convection deep in the mantle provides the energy that drives plate tectonics.

The Earth’s crust, about 40 km thick on the continent and 6 km in the sea basin, is too thin to cool and cannot support convection.

However, Professor Solomatov and his colleague Dr. Chabi Jain of St. Louis suspected that Venus’ crust had a proper thickness (probably 30-90 km, and in some places 30-90 km), temperature and rock composition.

To confirm this possibility, researchers applied a new theory of fluid dynamics developed in the lab.

Their calculations suggested that Venus’ crust could indeed support convection. This is a whole new way of thinking about the geology of planetary surfaces.

In 2024, scientists used a similar approach to determine that convection would likely not occur in the mercury mantle. Because the planet is too small and has been cooled quite a bit since it formed 4.5 billion years ago.

Venus, on the other hand, is a hot planet both inside and outside. The surface temperature reaches 465 degrees Celsius (870 degrees Fahrenheit), and its volcano and other surface features show clear signs of melting.

Scientists have been wondering how heat from the interior of the earth is transferred to the surface.

“Crustal convection can be an important missing mechanism,” Professor Solomatov said.

“Convection near the surface can also affect the type and placement of volcanoes on Venus’ surface.”

The author hopes that future missions to Venus can provide more detailed data on crust density and temperature.

If convection occurs as expected, some areas of the crust must be warmer and less dense than others. This is a difference that can be detected using high-resolution gravity measurements.

But perhaps an even more interesting target is Plput, a frozen dwarf planet outside the solar system.

Images from NASA’s New Horizons mission revealed a prominent polygonal pattern in the Sputnik Planitia region of Pltune, which resembles the plate boundary on Earth.

These polygons are formed by the slow convection current in a 4-km thick layer of solid nitrogen ice.

“Pluto is probably the second planetary body in the non-Earth solar system, and the convection driving tectonics is clearly visible on the surface,” Professor Solomatov said.

“It’s an attractive system that we still need to understand.”

result Published in the journal Physics of the interior of Earth and Planets.

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Viatcheslav S. Solomatov & Chhavi Jain. 2025. The possibility of convection in the Venus crust. Earth and Planet Physics 361:107332; doi:10.1016/j.pepi.2025.107332