A New Look at Sediments and Sedimentary Processes on Venus
When
Where
Dr. Lynn Carter
Associate Department Head
Professor
University of Arizona, Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
Sediments and sedimentary rocks are critical to understanding how Venus works today and are also extremely important for determining how Venus’s climate has changed through time and whether it was once a habitable planet. Early radar images of Venus’s vast volcanic plains, numerous volcanoes, and rugged tectonic regions led to the interpretation that Venus is a volcanic planet with little sediment cover and perhaps few processes for generating sedimentary rocks. However, over the years since the Magellan mission in the 1990s, we have developed a better understanding of sediments on Venus, including those produced by cratering and volcanism. In this talk I will discuss new analyses of sediment deposits on Venus, what they tell us about Venus as a planet, and how new data from future missions can be used to decipher the planet’s history.