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GSA Special Papers
Convergent Margin Terranes and Associated Regions: A Tribute to W.G. Ernst
Author(s)
Geological Society of America

Volume
419
Copyright:
Geological Society of America
ISBN print:
9780813724195
Publication date:
January 01, 2007
Book Chapter
Venus's evolution: A synthesis
Author(s)
V.L. Hansen
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Minnesota, Duluth, Minnesota 55812, USA
;
V.L. Hansen
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D.A. Young
Department of Geological Sciences, University of Minnesota, Duluth, Minnesota 55812, USA, and Institute for Geophysics, University of Texas, Austin, Texas 78759, USA
D.A. Young
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Published:January 01, 2007
Perhaps the most surprising result of the NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Magellan mission to Venus was the preservation of ∼970 essentially pristine impact craters distributed in near-random fashion across the planet surface. The craters have been widely interpreted as evidence of near-global catastrophic volcanic resurfacing over 10–100 million years, ∼500 million years ago. This view of Venus permeates textbooks and popular science, and is rarely questioned. The view of a catastrophically resurfaced Venus emerged relatively early in Magellan mission data analysis. We revisit the question of impact crater distribution and implications for Venus's resurfacing and evolutionary processes using...
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