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Long-lived volcanic resurfacing of Venus driven by early collisions

Nature Astronomy volume 7, pages 1180–1187 (2023)Cite this article

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Abstract

The geodynamics of Earth and Venus operate in strikingly distinct ways, in spite of their similar size and bulk density, resulting in Venus’s absence of plate tectonics and young surface age (0.2–1 billion years). Venus’s geophysical models have sought to explain these observations by invoking either stagnant lid tectonics and protracted volcanic resurfacing, or by a late episode of catastrophic mantle overturn. These scenarios, however, are sensitive to poorly understood internal initial conditions and rheological properties, and their ability to explain Venus’s young surface age remains unclear. Here we show that long-lived volcanism, driven by early, energetic collisions on Venus, offers an explanation of its young surface age with stagnant lid tectonics. This volcanic activity is fuelled by a superheated core, resulting in vigorous internal melting regardless of initial conditions. Furthermore, we find that energetic impacts stir Venus’s core, suggesting that its low magnetic field is not likely to be caused by a compositionally stratified core, as previously proposed.

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Fig. 1: Impact-generated melt on Venus.
Fig. 2: Venus’s thermal evolution from an energetic collision.
Fig. 3: Mollweide projection of Venus’s postimpact temperature.
Fig. 4: Venus’s thermal evolution modelling with and without an energetic collision.

Data availability

All data are available in the paper, figures or Supplementary Information. Inputs for numerical simulations are described in the text, and available from the corresponding author upon request.

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Acknowledgements

S.M. acknowledges internal support from the Southwest Research Institute and D. Nesvorný for providing impact velocity files from numerical integrations. R.R. is supported by NASA through a NASA Hubble Fellowship grant no. HST-HF2-51491 awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., for NASA, under contract NAS5-26555.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, CO, USA

    Simone Marchi & Raluca Rufu

  2. Sagan Fellow, Boulder, CO, USA

    Raluca Rufu

  3. Yale University, New Haven, CT, USA

    Jun Korenaga

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  1. Simone Marchi
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S.M. conceived the work and analysed the SPH simulations. R.R. ran the SPH simulations. J.K. ran and analysed the geophysical calculations. All authors contributed to the interpretation of the results and writing of the paper.

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Correspondence to Simone Marchi.

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Marchi, S., Rufu, R. & Korenaga, J. Long-lived volcanic resurfacing of Venus driven by early collisions. Nat Astron 7, 1180–1187 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-023-02037-2

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