MSGID: 1:317/3 642661f4   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    'Comprehensive' map of volcanoes on Venus -- all 85,000 of them    
      
     Date:   
         March 30, 2023   
     Source:   
         Washington University in St. Louis   
     Summary:   
         Planetary scientists Paul Byrne and Rebecca Hahn at Washington   
         University in St. Louis have created the first comprehensive map   
         of volcanoes on Venus, pinpointing 85,000 of them. Their study was   
         posted online in JGR Planets, and the dataset is publicly available.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
   ==========================================================================   
   Intrigued by reports of recent volcanic eruptions on Venus? WashU   
   planetary scientists Paul Byrne and Rebecca Hahn want you to use their new   
   map of 85,000 volcanoes on Venus to help locate the next active lava flow.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Their study was posted online ahead of print in JGR Planets.   
      
   "This paper provides the most comprehensive map of all volcanic edifices   
   on Venus ever compiled," said Byrne, an associate professor of earth   
   and planetary sciences in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in   
   St. Louis. "It provides researchers with an enormously valuable database   
   for understanding volcanism on that planet -- a key planetary process, but   
   for Venus is something about which we know very little, even though it's a   
   world about the same size as our own."  Byrne and Hahn used radar imagery   
   from NASA's Magellan mission to Venus to catalog volcanoes across Venus   
   at a global scale. Their resulting database contains 85,000 volcanoes,   
   about 99% of which are less than 3 miles (5 km) in diameter.   
      
   "Since NASA's Magellan mission in the 1990s, we've had numerous major   
   questions about Venus' geology, including its volcanic characteristics,"   
   Byrne said. "But with the recent discovery of active volcanism on Venus,   
   understanding just where volcanoes are concentrated on the planet, how   
   many there are, how big they are, etc., becomes all the more important   
   -- especially since we'll have new data for Venus in the coming years."   
   "We came up with this idea of putting together a global catalog because   
   no one's done it at this scale before," said Hahn, a graduate student in   
   earth and planetary sciences at Washington University, first author of the   
   new paper. "It was tedious, but I had experience using ArcGIS software,   
   which is what I used to build the map. That tool wasn't available when   
   these data first became available back in the '90s.   
      
   "People back then were manually hand-drawing circles around the volcanoes,   
   when I can just do it on my computer."  "This new database will enable   
   scientists to think about where else to search for evidence of recent   
   geological activity," said Byrne, who is a faculty fellow of the   
   university's McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences. "We can do it   
   either by trawling through the decades-old Magellan data (as the new   
   Science paper did) or by analyzing future data and comparing it with   
   Magellan data."  Byrne and Hahn's new study includes detailed analyses   
   of where volcanoes are, where and how they're clustered, and how their   
   spatial distributions compare with geophysical properties of the planet   
   such as crustal thickness.   
      
   Taken together, this work provides the most comprehensive understanding of   
   Venus' volcanic properties -- and perhaps of any world's volcanism so far.   
      
   That's because, although we know a great deal about the volcanoes on   
   Earth that are on land, there are still likely a great many yet to be   
   discovered under the oceans. Lacking oceans of its own, Venus' entire   
   surface can be viewed with Magellan radar imagery.   
      
   Although there are volcanoes across almost the entire surface of Venus,   
   the scientists found relatively fewer volcanoes in the 20-100 km diameter   
   range, which may be a function of magma availability and eruption rate,   
   they surmise.   
      
   Byrne and Hahn also wanted to take a closer look at smaller volcanoes   
   on Venus, those less than 3 miles across that have been overlooked by   
   previous volcano hunters.   
      
   "They're the most common volcanic feature on the planet: they represent   
   about 99% of my dataset," Hahn said. "We looked at their distribution   
   using different spatial statistics to figure out whether the volcanoes   
   are clustered around other structures on Venus, or if they're grouped   
   in certain areas."  The new volcanoes dataset is hosted at Washington   
   University and publicly available for other scientists to use.   
      
   "We've already heard from colleagues that they've downloaded the data   
   and are starting to analyze it -- which is exactly what we want," Byrne   
   said. "Other people will come up with questions we haven't, about volcano   
   shape, size, distribution, timing of activity in different parts of the   
   planet, you name it.   
      
   I'm excited to see what they can figure out with the new database!"   
   And if 85,000 volcanoes on Venus seems like a large number, Hahn said it's   
   actually conservative. She believes there are hundreds of thousands of   
   additional geologic features that have some volcanic properties lurking   
   on the surface of Venus. They're just too small to get picked up.   
      
   "A volcano 1 kilometer in diameter in the Magellan data would be 7   
   pixels across, which is really hard to see," Hahn said. "But with   
   improved resolution, we could be able to resolve those structures."   
   And it's exactly that kind of data that future missions to Venus will   
   acquire in the 2030s.   
      
   "NASA and ESA (the European Space Agency) are each sending a mission to   
   Venus in the early 2030s to take high-resolution radar images of the   
   surface," Byrne said. "With those images, we'll be able to search for   
   those smaller volcanoes we predict are there.   
      
   "This is one of the most exciting discoveries we've made for Venus --   
   with data that are decades old!" Byrne said. "But there are still a huge   
   number of questions we have for Venus that we can't answer, for which   
   we have to get into the clouds and onto the surface.   
      
   "We're just getting started," he said.   
      
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   ==========================================================================   
   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   Washington_University_in_St._Louis. Original written by Talia   
   Ogliore. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
   ==========================================================================   
   Related Multimedia:   
       * Map_of_volcanic_edifices_on_Venus   
   ==========================================================================   
   Journal Reference:   
      1. Rebecca M. Hahn, Paul K. Byrne. A Morphological and Spatial   
      Analysis of   
         Volcanoes on Venus. Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets,   
         2023; DOI: 10.1029/2023JE007753   
   ==========================================================================   
      
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/03/230330102408.htm   
      
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