Lakshmi Planum: A distinctive highland volcanic province

Lakshmi Planum, a broad smooth plain located in western Ishtar Terra and containing two large oval depressions (Colette and Sacajawea), has been interpreted as a highland plain of volcanic origin. Lakshmi is situated 3 to 5 km above the mean planetary radius and is surrounded on all sides by bands of mountains interpreted to be of compressional tectonic origin. Four primary characteristics distinguish Lakshmi from other volcanic regions known on the planet, such as Beta Regio: (1) high altitude, (2) plateau-like nature, (3) the presence of very large, low volcanic constructs with distinctive central calderas, and (4) its compressional tectonic surroundings. Building on the previous work of Pronin, the objective is to establish the detailed nature of the volcanic deposits on Lakshmi, interpret eruption styles and conditions, sketch out an eruption history, and determine the relationship between volcanism and the tectonic environment of the region

Sequential deformation of plains along Tessera boundaries on Venus: Evidence from Alpha Regio

Tesserae are regions of elevated terrain characterized by two or more sets of ridges and grooves that intersect orthogonally. Tesserae comprise 15-20 percent of the surface of Venus, but the nature of their formation and evolution is not well understood; processes proposed to account for their characteristics are many and varied. Two types of tessera boundaries have been described: type 1 are generally embayed by plains; and type 2 boundaries are characterized by being linear at the 100-km scale and often associated with steep scarps or tectonic features. Margins such as the western edge of Alpha have been described as type 2. Some of the tessera have boundaries that display deformation of both the edge of the tessera and the adjoining plains. This study focuses on the western edge of Alpha Regio in an effort to characterize on occurrence of this type of boundary and assess the implications of the style in general. Using Magellan SAR imagery, lineament lengths, orientations, and spacing were measured for ten 50 x 60 km areas spanning 500 km of the western boundary. Structural characteristics and orientations were compared to stratigraphic units in order to assess the sequence and style of deformation

Lunar Resources Using Moderate Spectral Resolution Visible and Near-infrared Spectroscopy: Al/si and Soil Maturity

Modern visible and near-infrared detectors are critically important for the accurate identification and relative abundance measurement of lunar minerals; however, even a very small number of well-placed visible and near-infrared bandpass channels provide a significant amount of general information about crucial lunar resources. The Galileo Solid State Imaging system (SSI) multispectral data are an important example of this. Al/Si and soil maturity will be discussed as examples of significant general lunar resource information that can be gleaned from moderate spectral resolution visible and near-infrared data with relative ease. Because quantitative-albedo data are necessary for these kinds of analyses, data such as those obtained by Galileo SSI are critical. SSI obtained synoptic digital multispectral image data for both the nearside and farside of the Moon during the first Galileo Earth-Moon encounter in December 1990. The data consist of images through seven filters with bandpasses ranging from 0.40 microns in the ultraviolet to 0.99 microns in the near-infrared. Although these data are of moderate spectral resolution, they still provide information for the following lunar resources: (1) titanium content of mature mare soils based upon the 0.40/0.56-micron (UV/VIS) ratio; (2) mafic mineral abundance based upon the 0.76/0.99-micron ratio; and (3) the maturity or exposure age of the soils based upon the 0.56-0.76-micron continuum and the 0.76/0.99-micron ratio. Within constraints, these moderate spectral resolution visible and near-infrared reflectance data can also provide elemental information such as Al/Si for mature highland soils

Oxidized basalts on the surface of Venus: Compositional implications of measured spectral properties

Venera Lander reflectance data are compared with high temperature spectra of the same basaltic materials. The dark, flat unoxidized basalts are still inconsistent with the Venera data in the near-infrared. Basaltic material with a ferric component, however, would satisfy both the increase in reflectance beyond 0.7 microns as well as the dark, relatively colorless character in the visible. Therefore, it is concluded that besaltic surfaces of Venus represented by these measurements either contain minerals with uncommon characteristics, or, more likely, are relatively oxidized

Chemical differentiation on one-plate planets: Predictions and geologic observations for Venus

Recent studies have examined the partial melting of planetary interiors on one-plate planets and the implications for the formation and evolution of basaltic crust and the complementary residual mantle layer. In contrast to the Earth, where the crust and residual layer move laterally and are returned to the interior following subduction, one-plate planets such as Venus are characterized by vertical accretion of the crust and residual layer. The residual mantle layer is depleted and compositionally buoyant, being less dense than undepleted mantle due to its reduced Fe/Mg and dense Al-bearing minerals; its melting temperature is also increased. As the crust and depleted mantle layer grow vertically during the thermal evolution of the planet, several stages develop. As a step in the investigation and testing of these theoretical treatments of crustal development on Venus, we investigate the predictions deriving from two of these stages (a stable thick crust and depleted layer, and a thick unstable depleted layer) and compare these to geologic and geophysical observations, speculating on how these might be interpreted in the context of the vertical crustal accretion models. In each case, we conclude with an outline of further tests and observations of these models

Extensive lava flow fields on Venus: Preliminary investigation of source elevation and regional slope variations

Large-volume lava flow fields have been identified on Venus, the most areally extensive of which are known as fluctus and have been subdivided into six morphologic types. Sheetlike flow fields (Type 1) lack the numerous, closely spaced, discrete lava flow lobes that characterize digitate flow fields. Transitional flow fields (Type 2) are similar to sheetlike flow fields but contain one or more broad flow lobes. Digitate flow fields are divided further into divergent (Types 3-5) and subparallel (Type 6) classes on the basis of variations in the amount of downstream flow divergence. As a result of our previous analysis of the detailed morphology, stratigraphy, and tectonic associations of Mylitta Fluctus, we have formulated a number of questions to apply to all large flow fields on Venus. In particular, we would like to address the following: (1) eruption conditions and style of flow emplacement (effusion rate, eruption duration), (2) the nature of magma storage zones (presence of neutral buoyancy zones, deep or shallow crustal magma chambers), (3) the origin of melt and possible link to mantle plumes, and (4) the importance of large flow fields in plains evolution. To answer these questions we have begun to examine variations in flow field dimension and morphology; the distribution of large flow fields in terms of elevation above the mean planetary radius; links to regional tectonic or volcanic structures (e.g., associations with large shield edifices, coronae, or rift zones); statigraphic relationships between large flow fields, volcanic plains, shields, and coronae; and various models of flow emplacement in order to estimate eruption parameters. In this particular study, we have examined the proximal elevations and topographic slopes of 16 of the most distinctive flow fields that represent each of the 6 morphologic types

Universal persistence exponents in an extremally driven system

The local persistence R(t), defined as the proportion of the system still in its initial state at time t, is measured for the Bak--Sneppen model. For 1 and 2 dimensions, it is found that the decay of R(t) depends on one of two classes of initial configuration. For a subcritical initial state, R(t)\sim t^{-\theta}, where the persistence exponent \theta can be expressed in terms of a known universal exponent. Hence \theta is universal. Conversely, starting from a supercritical state, R(t) decays by the anomalous form 1-R(t)\sim t^{\tau_{\rm ALL}} until a finite time t_{0}, where \tau_{\rm ALL} is also a known exponent. Finally, for the high dimensional model R(t) decays exponentially with a non--universal decay constant.Comment: 4 pages, 6 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Evaluation of Mobility Modes on Lunar Exploration Traverses - Marius Hills, Copernicus Peaks, and Hadley Apennines Missions

Energy and time costs of lunar walking or riding traverses, and scientific tasks on J-type missions, and capabilities of A7L suits and life support system

Large-volume lava flow fields on Venus: Dimensions and morphology

Of all the volcanic features identified in Magellan images, by far the most extensive and really important are lava flow fields. Neglecting the widespread lava plains themselves, practically every C1-MIDR produced so far contains several or many discrete lava flow fields. These range in size from a few hundred square kilometers in area (like those fields associated with small volcanic edifices for example), through all sizes up to several hundred thousand square kilometers in extent (such as many rift related fields). Most of these are related to small, intermediate, or large-scale volcanic edifices, coronae, arachnoids, calderas, fields of small shields, and rift zones. An initial survey of 40 well-defined flow fields with areas greater than 50,000 sq km (an arbitrary bound) has been undertaken. Following Columbia River Basalt terminology, these have been termed great flow fields. This represents a working set of flow fields, chosen to cover a variety of morphologies, sources, locations, and characteristics. The initial survey is intended to highlight representative flow fields, and does not represent a statistical set. For each flow field, the location, total area, flow length, flow widths, estimated flow thicknesses, estimated volumes, topographic slope, altitude, backscatter, emissivity, morphology, and source has been noted. The flow fields range from about 50,000 sq km to over 2,500,000 sq km in area, with most being several hundred square kilometers in extent. Flow lengths measure between 140 and 2840 km, with the majority of flows being several hundred kilometers long. A few basic morphological types have been identified

Brain-Blood Partition Coefficient and Cerebral Blood Flow in Canines Using Calibrated Short TR Recovery (CaSTRR) Correction Method.

The brain-blood partition coefficient (BBPC) is necessary for quantifying cerebral blood flow (CBF) when using tracer based techniques like arterial spin labeling (ASL). A recent improvement to traditional MRI measurements of BBPC, called calibrated short TR recovery (CaSTRR), has demonstrated a significant reduction in acquisition time for BBPC maps in mice. In this study CaSTRR is applied to a cohort of healthy canines (n = 17, age = 5.0 - 8.0 years) using a protocol suited for application in humans at 3T. The imaging protocol included CaSTRR for BBPC maps, pseudo-continuous ASL for CBF maps, and high resolution anatomical images. The standard CaSTRR method of normalizing BBPC to gadolinium-doped deuterium oxide phantoms was also compared to normalization using hematocrit (Hct) as a proxy value for blood water content. The results show that CaSTRR is able to produce high quality BBPC maps with a 4 min acquisition time. The BBPC maps demonstrate significantly higher BBPC in gray matter (0.83 ± 0.05 mL/g) than in white matter (0.78 ± 0.04 mL/g, p = 0.006). Maps of CBF acquired with pCASL demonstrate a negative correlation between gray matter perfusion and age (p = 0.003). Voxel-wise correction for BBPC is also shown to improve contrast to noise ratio between gray and white matter in CBF maps. A novel aspect of the study was to show that that BBPC measurements can be calculated based on the known Hct of the blood sample placed in scanner. We found a strong correlation (R 2 = 0.81 in gray matter, R 2 = 0.59 in white matter) established between BBPC maps normalized to the doped phantoms and BBPC maps normalized using Hct. This obviates the need for doped water phantoms which simplifies both the acquisition protocol and the post-processing methods. Together this suggests that CaSTRR represents a feasible, rapid method to account for BBPC variability when quantifying CBF. As canines have been used widely for aging and Alzheimer's disease studies, the CaSTRR method established in the animals may further improve CBF measurements and advance our understanding of cerebrovascular changes in aging and neurodegeneration