Thats interesting because it shows that Venus maybe as "geologically alive" as Earth.
In contrast Mars, though once a happening place, seems to have been geologically dead for maybe a billion years.
Trouble is that we can see the surface of Mars more easily than we can that of Venus.
Earth has two main kinds of volcanoes: strato volcanoes (like Mt. Fuji), and shield volcanoes (like the Hawaiian islands).
Strato volcanoes look like other big majestic mountains with permanent snow caps like Pikes Peak or the Matterhorn...but with holes on the top.
Shield volcanoes (on both Mars and on Earth) are only six percent as tall as they are wide at the base. So they "look" like an ancient warrior's shield laid on the ground. Except if you approach a shield volcano the summit would be over the horizon and so it wouldnt even look like a mountain at all- just a continuation of the flat plain you're moving toward it on.
Mars only seems to have the shield variety. Venus might have both. As we speak...Venusian folks might be fleeing lava from an eruption somewhere on their planet ...while the rest hear about it on the news. Except because its 900 degree F. on Venus no creatures live there AFAWK.
The biggest mountain so far discovered in the solar system is a shield volcano on Mars. Olympus Mons. 69 thousand feet tall. More than twice as tall as Everest, and about twice as tall as the main volcano on the Big Island of Hawaii. But its base covers an area the size of the state of Missouri. So it has the same almost flat six percent ratio of height to base as the island of Hawaii.
28 May 2024, 7:38 pm
