In class we looked at examples of several of the geological formations that are found on the surface of Venus...

Impact craters (of course) are caused by impacts; on Venus there are only 963 of them, 2-280 km in size, of which 6 are multi-ring craters, each 100-300 km diameter. To look at other craters, check out these images of Stuart, Piaf, and a tiny crater with no name (only a number) called V44-C6.

Tesserae (Tt) are a type of terrain composed of complex deformation patterns, with intensely crinkled landscapes, that form very rough surfaces with boulders 0.1 m or larger.

Dark parabolas are features shaped roughly like parabolas around volcanoes. They are caused by wind-blown, fine-grained erupted material that falls around the source, smoothing the surface so it appears dark on radar images. Because the prevailing winds on Venus always blow from east to west, they usually form to the west of craters.

Pit chains are collapse structures that form along grabens, or down-dropped trenches (along areas of extension), when loose surface material falls into pits along the depression.

Densely fractured plains (Pdf) contain parallel, densely-spaced faults from extension and shearing; they cover 3% of surface, and are the first unit after the tessera.

Fractured and ridged plains (Pfr) are broad, 10-15 km ridges that are interpreted to be compressional folds!

Wrinkle ridge plains (Pwr) are one of the most common units on Venus; they rise ~1 km above surrounding plains and may be stacks of thin sheets of flows. They occur in lowland plains, and contain 1-2 km wide folds.

Lobate Plains (Pl) are fans of superposed lava flows emanating from specific source. They are usually associated with rifts or coronae, with some large volcanoes.

Shield plains (Psh) are clusters of coalescing, gently sloping volcanic shields that also occur on flanks of larger shield volcanoes. They have small collapse pits at centers, and are typically 3-20 km in diameter.

In this homework, you will use these images to help you understand one of the first geological quadrangles to be mapped on Venus, designated V20. This work was done by George McGill at the University of Massachusetts, who has very kindly made this material available to us. Note that the lower left corner of this map is 0N, 0E. First, take a look at this colored image of the topography of the area; in these images, the color changes from purple (low) to blue to green to yellow to orange to red (pink; high).

Note that some areas on all the maps are empty (showing as black or dark green in the topographic image), due to incomplete coverage of satellite data. You’re looking at an area of volcanoes of various sizes. Contrast this image with the radar image shown below (in black and white); remember, radar images show surface roughness/smoothness, NOT topography.

The full radar image of this quadrangle is 134 Mb at 72 dots per inch; these maps represent huge amounts of data! To make looking at the map a little easier, we’ve broken it down into a smaller, low resolution version of the whole thing, as well as high resolution files (16 of them), starting with tile V20_1 in the upper left hand corner, and ending with tile V20_16 in the lower left. To make yourself a big map, you can print out all 20 tiles and then tape them together. However, it shouldn’t be necessary to print the whole thing out to answer the homework questions.