Venus, An Active Planet: Evidence for Recent Volcanic and Tectonic Activity

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Morphostructural mapping of Borealis Planitia, Mercury

Orbital data from the MESSENGER spacecraft show that a significant portion of Mercury’s northern hemisphere is covered by smooth plains, which are interpreted to be flood volcanic material and/or impact melt. The smooth plains show pervasive tectonic structures and encompass a broad raised bulge of uncertain geophysical interpretation. In this work, we focus on the mapping of all the morphostructures within the northern smooth plains, aiming at providing a useful dataset for further studies about the mapped area. The structural map is obtained through a twofold process: first with an automatic mapping, using an algorithm to identify all the lineaments from a DEM; and second with a visual inspection and classification of the results of the algorithm in a GIS environment. The final maps are drafted at two different scales, 1:300,000 and 1:600,000. With this approach, we mapped and characterized more than fifty thousand lines marking scarps on the surface, creating a database with several morphometric attributes for each of the identified scarps (e.g. length, azimuth, and height), which can be used for geostatistical study of smooth plains tectonics. Our structural map reveals that: (i) the area is broadly dominated by wrinkle ridges, ghost crater assemblages of lineaments, and scarps related to impact crater processes (e.g. radial faults, secondary crater chains, ejecta emplacement) and that (ii) the amount of strain was not evenly accommodated throughout the northern smooth plains

Introducing the “analogs for Venus’ geologically recent surfaces” initiative: an opportunity for identifying and analyzing recently active volcano-tectonic areas of Venus trough a comparative study with terrestrial analogs

Several missions to Venus have been recently selected for launch [1–6], opening a new era for the exploration of the planet. One of the key questions that the future missions need to address is whether Venus is presently volcanically active [7–15]. Studying areas of active volcanism and tectonism on Venus is crucial to reveal clues about the geologic past of the planet, as well as provide information about the volatile content of its interior and the formation of its dense atmosphere. The “Analogsfor VENus’ GEologically Recent Surfaces” (AVENGERS) initiative aims to build a comprehensive database of terrestrial analog sites for the comparative study of recent and possibly on- going volcanic activity on Venus. Besides its scientific relevance, the AVENG- ERS initiative also acts as a bridge for international scientific collaboration, including the leadership and/or team members from the currently selected missions to Venus

Making Sense of 2.5 Million Surface Reflectance Spectra of Mercury from MESSENGER

The Mercury Atmospheric and Surface and Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) on the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft has mapped the surface of Mercury on a global basis during its one-year primary orbital mission and the first third of its extended mission, producing ~2.5 million spectra from March 2011 to July 2012. The primary challenge to analyzing this dataset is to cope with its large size. In earlier studies of MASCS data, we combined several approaches, ranging from principal component analysis (PCA) to unsupervised cluster analysis and regridding to global and local fixed grids. Each of those techniques provided insight into spectral variations for different volumes of data, but each was quickly overcome by the growing dataset. The most recent version of our data analysis procedure uses PostgreSQL, a type of database management that controls the creation, integrity, maintenance, and use of a database. It embeds a high-level query language, which greatly simplifies database organization as well as retrieval and presentation of database information. We set up a data pipeline to update automatically the MASCS data, read them from the NASA Planetary Data System format, regrid the data to a common grid length, and store all information in the database. All data are then readily available to any authorized user in our network. We are working on a library to access the data directly from within our analysis software, and some preliminary functions have been implemented. As an example, the calculation of a parameter representing the database takes 2 s even for the full dataset of 2.5 million entries. It is thus straightforward to create and analyze rapidly the data, as for example the distribution of normalized radiance at a fixed wavelength. The new methodology provides facilities for controlling data access, enforcing data integrity, managing concurrency control, and recovering the database after a failure and restoring it from backup files, as well as maintaining database security. As an example, a simple query on the volume of data results in 2,476,048 spectra in 700 ms. Moreover, we use PostGIS to add support for geographic objects in a geographic information system (GIS) and to extend the database language with functions to create and manipulate geographic objects. A typical application is the definition of a large number of regions of interest (ROIs) and the search for all data points falling within each ROI. This facility may be used to extract spectral signatures specific to user-defined geological units in a few seconds and to explore the properties of the data from the different ROIs allowing quick analysis of the spectral characteristics of Mercury. We have successfully tested remote access to the database with a GIS visualization system, and we have created data visualization products that layer camera data and real-time-queried MASCS data

Shallow crustal composition of Mercury as revealed by spectral properties and geological units of two impact craters

We have performed a combined geological and spectral analysis of two impact craters on Mercury: the 15 km diameter Waters crater (106°W; 9°S) and the 62.3 km diameter Kuiper crater (30°W; 11°S). Using the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS) Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) dataset we defined and mapped several units for each crater and for an external reference area far from any impact related deposits. For each of these units we extracted all spectra from the MESSENGER Atmosphere and Surface Composition Spectrometer (MASCS) Visible-InfraRed Spectrograph (VIRS) applying a first order photometric correction. For all the mapped units, we analyzed the spectral slope in two wavelength ranges, 350-450 nm and 450-650 nm, and the absolute reflectance in the 700-750 nm range. Normalized spectra of Waters crater display a generally bluer spectral slope than the external reference area over both wavelength windows. Normalized spectra of Kuiper crater generally display a redder slope than the external reference area in the 350-450 nm window, while they display a bluer slope than the external reference area in the 450-650 nm wavelength range. The combined use of geological and spectral analyses enables reconstruction of the local scale stratigraphy beneath the two craters, providing insight into the properties of the shallower crust of Mercury. Kuiper crater, being ~4 times larger than Waters crater, exposes deeper layers with distinctive composition, while the result for Waters crater might indicate substantial compositional homogeneity with the surrounding intercrater plains, though we cannot exclude the occurrence of horizontal compositional heterogeneities in the shallow sub-surface

Comparisons of fresh complex impact craters on Mercury and the Moon: Implications for controlling factors in impact excavation processes

The impact cratering process is usually divided into the coupling, excavation, and modification stages, where each stage is controlled by a combination of different factors. Although recognized as the main factors governing impact processes on airless bodies, the relative importance of gravity, target and projectile properties, and impact velocity in each stage is not well understood. We focus on the excavation stage to place better constraints on its controlling factors by comparing the morphology and scale of crater-exterior structures for similar-sized fresh complex craters on the Moon and Mercury. We find that the ratios of continuous ejecta deposits, continuous secondaries facies, and the largest secondary craters on the continuous secondaries facies between same-sized mercurian and lunar craters are consistent with predictions from gravity-regime crater scaling laws. Our observations support that gravity is a major controlling factor on the excavation stage of the formation of complex impact craters on the Moon and Mercury. On the other hand, similar-sized craters with identical background terrains on Mercury have different spatial densities of secondaries on the continuous secondaries facies, suggesting that impactor velocity may also be important during the excavation stage as larger impactor velocity may also cause greater ejection velocities. Moreover, some craters on Mercury have more circular and less clustered secondaries on the continuous secondaries facies than other craters on Mercury or the Moon. This morphological difference appears not to have been caused by the larger surface gravity or the larger median impact velocity on Mercury. A possible interpretation is that at some places on Mercury, the target material might have unique properties causing larger ejection angles during the impact excavation stage. We conclude that gravity is the major controlling factor on the impact excavation stage of complex craters, while impact velocity and target properties also affect the excavation stage but to a lesser extent than gravity