User:Gmreynol/Volcanism on Venus

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= Volcanism on Venus =

Identifying Volcanos on Venus
The Process of being able to locate volcanos on Venus became possible after the Magellan mission in 1990, which mapped over 95% of the surface of Venus. To see the surface of Venus through the extreme clouds that surround the planet they used synthetic aperture radar. Some images created by this mapping can give a perspective view of the elevation on the land on Venus which is able to assist in the identification of volcanos. Volcanic features that can be seen from these images include, flood lavas, clusters of edifices, shield volcanos, volcanic cones, and domes consisting of lava. After the Magellan mission, there has been over 1660 volcanic landforms have been identified on the surface of Venus.

After the surface of Venus was mapped the California Institute of Technology started work on creating an algorithm for automatically identifying volcanos from the mapping images. It is important to note that it is impossible to 100% know if a geological feature found on the mapping is considered a volcano considered no one has visited the surface of Venus. To confront this issue, they had developed a system of categories that label the confidence of whether it is a volcano or not. The algorithm is designed to look at an image of a 30km x 30km area of the surface of Venus and areas considered to be volcanos are reshaped into a vector and is processed through a series of equations. This algorithm has been used to identify multiple volcanos in different mapping images from Venus.

Scientists are also able to determine age of volcanos on Venus using images from the Magellan mission. One way scientists are able to do this is through looking at winkle ridges on regional plains. An example of this is if a volcano's flanking slopes that holds lava flow does not have wrinkles ridges, then they would be considered young.

Sif Mons:
The Sif Mons volcano is 350km in diameter, 2km height, and is in the Western Eistla Regio Rise. Based on the mapping of the volcano, the area around the central caldera is mostly flat with many chain pits surrounding the area. On eastern parts of the volcano lava has flooded from the main caldera to smaller calderas nearby. According to the department of geological sciences, there is a lot of evidence suggesting there were many flank eruptions at this volcano. A majority of the flow fields around this volcano are sheet flow fields.

Gula Mons:
The Gula Mons volcano is 460km in diameter, 3.2km high and is in the Western Eistla Regio Rise. According to the Department of Geology and Geophysics and University of Hawaii, the Gula Mons is considered a shield volcano. This volcano has a central edifice that is surrounded by the peaks of the volcano. According to the Department of Geological Sciences, mapping suggests that there are multiple caldera pits in this volcano that are partially filled with lava.

Kunapipi Mons:
The Kunapipi Mons volcano has a diameter of 580km, is 2.5km high and is on the Juno Chasma rift. According to the Department of Geological Sciences, the summit of the volcano is a long plateau region. The main edifice of this volcano consists of a lot of short flows and most of these flows are sheet flows.