Talk:Geology of Venus

(random heading)

(inserted for immediately reaching TOC. ... said: Rursus (^mbork³) 18:27, 2 September 2009 (UTC))

• The plate tectonics section has two seemingly contradictory bits:

"Venus no presenta indicios de tectónica de placas, sin embargo, su superficie sí presenta varios patrones geográficos..." and "El activo tectonismo de Venus ha generado cinturones montañosos plegados.." Which one is correct? I would imagine the latter is right, but I just did a straight translation. Fernando Rizo 00:01, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I think the seeming contradiction is presented by Venus itself! As the Spanish article says, Venus has no tectonic plates, yet it has many geological features associated with tectonic processes such as mountain folding, rift valleys and so forth. I think therefore it's reasonable to talk about the 'tectonism' of Venus, while pointing out that in fact the crust is not fractured into distinct plates. See also El Tectonismo de Venus --Keithlard 14:36, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

• Translation of decimal point: should "6.054 km" in the Spanish version (Procesos superficiales, paragraph 7) be translated to "6.054 kilometers" or 6,054 kilometers"? RandyUang 00:35, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

• Yes, I've translated the decimal point elsewhere as a comma, per the Wikipedia:Manual of Style -- Keithlard 01:25, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Do we italizice the names of space probes or do we leave them normal? I'm seeing it both ways in this article. -- Titoxd 23:00, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I've made the names of space probes a wikilink where they first occur, and normal text thereafter. That seems a sensible scheme - it's not usual to see these names italicised in English text. -- Keithlard 01:25, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

I just checked the Manual of Style, and it says that the names of ships should be italicized. So, does that include spaceships? Just wondering, because it would be easier and more effective to italicize them now than to have to go back... --Titoxd 02:37, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Yes, that includes spaceships. --Fenice 06:13, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

This approach may be correct according to the MoS, but it is not used in Venus, Magellan probe, Space exploration, Pioneer 10, Venera program, or Mariner program (though it is used in Galileo). However, consistency within an article is more important than consistency across the encyclopedia, so I agree we should go with the MoS here. --Keithlard 14:36, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Some more... the Spanish version of the article includes a false-color image that is referenced in the "Lava flows and canals" section. Do I just remove those references or should the image be placed on this page too? --Titoxd 00:33, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

'22% comprises of stereoscopic images' - 'comprises stereoscopic images' is more generally regarded as correct, I think, though both usages are recognised: cf http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=comprise To avoid a grammar war I suggest rewording this as 'including 22% stereoscopic images', or similar :-D --Keithlard 12:44, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree, "comprises of" sounds strange to me to and should be avoided, even though it is correct. Using "include" instead is a good solution.--Fenice 13:04, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

"Includes" still didn't sound right. I changed it to "are", which gets the meaning across simply. - mako 06:05, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

The more I look at it now, the less good any of our suggested wordings seems to me. Maybe I've just been looking at it too long :D 'Are' definitely looks wrong (it's like saying 'I have a big pile of money, of which 22% are Spanish'). How about '98% of the planet was mapped, 22% in 3D'? -- Keithlard 10:12, 16 July 2005 (UTC)

You're absolutely right; I'm embarassed I didn't catch that. Gotta be careful when editing late at night. - mako 03:17, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

'Canals' vs. 'channels' - I've changed this because I think 'channels' is the more common usage in English; 'canal' is almost always used to mean an artificial channel (hence the confusion over the mistranslation of Schiaparelli's 'canali' of Mars as 'canals' instead of 'channels', implying the presence of intelligent life). -- Keithlard 15:16, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. It looks like the names of the books listed under "References" was translated literally from the Spanish Wikipedia article. Shouldn't the references be left as-is? I'm switching them back. -- Titoxd 23:44, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

"While the most popular theory is that the channels are the result of thermal erosion by lava, there are other hypotheses, including the heated fluids formed and ejected during impacts." - I couldn't find a reference for this, so I took it out. Does anyone else have a source quoting this hypothesis, or has it been obsoleted? While I was looking, I found this very recent paper on theories about the channel formation:

• Lang, N.P. & Hansen, V.L. "Venusian channel formation through subsurface processes", Lunar and Planetary Science XXXVI (2005)

which outlines a new hypothesis, probably worth mentioning. Sorry if I was hasty in removing the ejecta hypothesis, but some of the information in the Spanish article is a bit out of date. -- Keithlard 10:01, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Hmm. No, I looked for that, and I couldn't find anything. However, I did stuble upon this page, which looks like it has very good information. I would add it, but outside life calls and I have to take a Wikivacation. -- Titoxd 21:59, 15 July 2005 (UTC)

Progress Report

So, it looks like we're done with the heavy-duty translating part. Now all that's left to do is to make sure that there aren't any gaps, copyedit, factcheck, and then expand the article so we can nominate it in WP:FAC. --19:36, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

It looks great! I think this is already the best and most comprehensive of the astrogeology articles. A big thanks to everyone who's worked on it so far, especially those who did the bulk of the translation (it's a slow and tedious process for me with my basic Spanish). I hope I haven't trodden on anyone's well-loved edits, or seemed to be taking over with my constant polishing and rewriting, but I've really enjoyed working on it with you all as my first serious Wikipedia project. I think we're well on the way to featured status. Great work, everybody! -- Keithlard 00:40, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Images

Excellent images - should we nominate some of them for featured images? — Stevey7788 (talk) 22:48, 4 August 2005 (UTC)

Altimetry

The Altimetry for Pioneer 12 is stated as "The altimetry data had an accuracy of 150 kilometers." that sound helluva inaccurate, no? Cheers Khukri ^{(talk . contribs)} 11:48, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Organisation

It would be nice to see this as a featured article. I think the main problem is organisation, which seems a bit illogical at the moment. How about this for a TOC to rearrange the article into:

1. Observations

   How we know what we know - Venera probes, Magellan mission

2. Volcanism

   2.1 Volcanoes

   2.2 Other volcanic features

   2.3 Comparison with terrestrial volcanism

3. Tectonism

   3.1 Lack of plates

   3.2 Global resurfacing events

4. Impact craters
5. Erosion
6. References
7. External links

Worldtraveller 16:21, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

Craters

• Re. impact craters:

"radar shows that they are rough and have not had time to be eroded down".

I don't think it's a matter of time - more that without water or wind to speak of, there's nothing to erode them down! Is this correct?

• Also - the age of the surface is given here as 650Ma - what is the source for this? I believe that 500Ma is the more widely accepted estimate... [unsigned]

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BetacommandBot (talk) 02:10, 12 February 2008 (UTC)

Beauty

Is the first line really encyclopedic? As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 206.126.170.20 (talk) 22:00, 30 June 2008 (UTC)

Erosion of the old lava

Excuse me, I do not think it is correctly formulated here:

The reactions probably include the deterioration of silicates by carbon dioxide to produce carbonates and quartz, as well as the deterioration of silicates by sulfur dioxide to produce anhydrate calcium sulfate and carbon dioxide.

One cannot get CO₂ from CaSiO₃ and SO₂. Maybe CO₂ reacts with the carbonate appeared in the reaction mentioned before? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.148.226.100 (talk) 19:25, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

Wind Erosion

There seems to be a discrepancy in the first section:

Long rivers of lava have been discovered, as well as evidence of Aeolian erosion and tectonic shifts which have played an essential role in making the surface of Venus as complex as it is today.

versus

These winds exist at high altitudes, but the atmosphere at the surface is relatively calm, and images from the surface reveal no evidence of wind erosion.

Aeolian erosion is the just a fancy name for wind erosion, isn't it? Is there evidence of it happening on Venus, or not? Rojomoke (talk) 09:32, 24 July 2009 (UTC)

I saw the reply on the Science reference desk, so I've made a small adjustment to the second sentence so that it doesn't contradict the first. Can we find any references? Dbfirs 17:39, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Normal faults

If the network of "normal faults" cris-crosses the surface of Venus, then can that network be construed, as some sort of "semi-mid-ocean-ridge" resembling planetological structure? I.e., some sort of "semi-spreading-zone" that "doesn't quite make it", do to the differences, between earth & venus ?? 24.143.65.75 (talk) 09:38, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Plate tectonics as it occurs on Earth, does not appear to happen on Venus. The rifts or "chasmata" are explained as a result of uplift associated with magmatic effects at the base of the Venusian lithosphere. The total amount of extension appears to be rather small, there is, as far as I know, no evidence of large-scale lateral movement of the crust on Venus. The main difference between tectonics on Venus and Earth is that that the mantle in the former lacks water, something that appears critical to the development of the relatively weak asthenosphere on Earth. Mikenorton (talk) 10:09, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

One hour claim

The article claims that no probe has been able to survive for "more than one hour" on the surface, whereas the page on Venera_13 says that craft survived for 127 minutes on the surface. One of these two facts is surely wrong? --81.138.8.26 (talk) 11:48, 13 March 2013 (UTC)

Mapping of Venus

is a new, lovely article that needs to be thoroughly overhauled and meshed with this article. Any Venusophiles got some free time? — LlywelynII 05:05, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Global resurfacing event

I think this needs a bit more work. The idea of a periodic event is only one hypothesis. This is a recent article on the cyclic event but it's rather techy

http://www.lpi.usra.edu/meetings/lpsc2005/pdf/1893.pdf

Others treat it as a one off event. As for the timing of it, this paper says 0.2 to 1 billion years ago and it's a recent paper, December 2014, based on analysing the nearly 1000 Magellan survey craters

http://planetary.brown.edu/pdfs/4932.pdf

One hypothesis is that Venus had less atmospheric pressure before the event and the modern thick atmosphere is a result of volcanic outgassing during the stagnant lid upheaval.

I think it might be good if some of this was mentioned. Robert Walker (talk) 18:50, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

You seem to understand it better than most - I don't think anyone would object to you being bold! A2soup (talk) 21:34, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

Agree with A2Soup. I look forward to your edits. Arianewiki1 (talk) 22:36, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

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Venusian dirt is not soil

I'm trying to remove "soil" from this article, since it's a formally, scientifically recognized term for a mixture of dirt, biogenic organic material and organisms like fungi that supports growth of plants, but user Geogene keeps trolling by reverting it because he thinks errors in publications should be copied regardless of anything. Wikipedia is not a place to mindlessly copy information. Regolith is a broken (subcentimetre particles) material on the surface of planetary bodies, its finer fractions are called gravel, sand, silt, clay. Venus has no soil. That has been proven. We know what kind of place its surface is. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-difference-between-soil-and-dirt https://www.britannica.com/science/soil Lajoswinkler (talk) 22:17, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

Lajoswinkler is on an edit warring campaign based around a pet peeve about soil implying biological activity. Well, that's actually correct, in a very strict definition of the world soil. If I didn't know better I would think this was some kind of trolling, except that this isn't the first time I've heard of someone in the know harping on that point. But the problem is that virtually all sources on Venusian geology call it soil colloquially nonetheless, and Wikipedia is mostly about following sources. Even Britannica, whose article on soil is being cited above as authoritative, uses the word "soil" in its own Venus article, at least eight times [1]. Geogene (talk) 23:25, 30 January 2021 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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• USSR Venera 13 1982 - Venus ground recolorized.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 06:23, 7 August 2021 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: ERTH 4303 Resources of the Earth

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 12 January 2024 and 10 April 2024. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Garnet.husky (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Atticusdarwin (talk) 21:19, 1 March 2024 (UTC)