Mate mons
The Maat Mons is the highest volcano of the planet Venus . It lies at 0.5 ° north latitude and 194.6 ° east longitude. and rises eight kilometers above the mean planetary radius . It was named after the Egyptian goddess Maat .
structure
The Maat Mons has a large caldera with an area of 28 km by 31 km. Inside there are at least five small collapsed craters with a diameter of up to 10 km. A chain of small craters, 3 to 5 km in diameter, stretches for 40 km along the southwest side of the volcano. However, they show no signs of a volcanic eruption, but also seem to have been formed by collapses. High-resolution images from the Magellan probe indicate no lava flow .
activity
Radar surveys by the Magellan probe revealed relatively frequent volcanic activity on Maat Mons in the form of ash flows on the summit and on the northern side.
Planetary geologists found considerable fluctuations in the sulfur dioxide and methane concentrations within the middle and higher Venusian atmosphere during investigations carried out in the early 1980s using the Pioneer Venus probes . One possible explanation for this would be the release of volcanic gases into the atmosphere by Plinian eruptions from Maat Mons .
swell
- Robinson CA, Thornhill GD, Parfitt EA (1995), Large-scale volcanic activity at Maat Mons: Can this explain fluctuations in atmospheric chemistry observed by Pioneer Venus? , Journal of Geophysical Research , v. 100, pp. 11755-11764
- Mouginis-Mark PJ (1994), Morphology of Venus Calderas: Sif and Maat Montes , Abstracts of the 25th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, held in Houston, TX, March 14-18, 1994., pp. 949