Oct 20, 2020
Layered Features Hint at the Origin of Tesserae on Venus
Planetary News
The tesserae of Venus are some of its oldest and most tectonically deformed regions. Standing at high elevations compared to the volcanic plains that dominate the planet, their morphology, gravity signature, and possible low-iron mineral composition have led to theories that they may be remnants of Venus’s continental crust, left exposed after the rest of the planet was resurfaced by volcanism. A new study led by Paul Byrne of North Carolina State University advances a different hypothesis that the tesserae are composed of folded layers of rock, possibly like flood basalts or sedimentary rocks on Earth.