The Strange Secret Behind Venus’ Pancake Volcanoes

Venus is home to some of the weirdest volcanoes in the solar system—massive, flattened domes that look like planetary pancakes left to cool on the world’s blistering surface. Scientists have long suspected these “pancake domes” formed from thick, slow-moving lava. But a new study suggests that Venus’ bendy crust may be crucial to the formation of the circular mounts. The research, published earlier this month in Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, focused on one particularly enormous dome, Narina Tholus, which stretches nearly 90 miles (145 kilometers) across. Using old radar data from NASA’s 1990s Magellan mission, researchers built a virtual model of the dome and tested what kind of lava—and what kind of crust—could produce such a geological flapjack. Turns out, lava alone doesn’t explain the domes’ strange shape. “Our models show that flexure influences dome shape,” the researchers wrote, “in the presence of more flexure, dome tops become flatter and sides steeper.” Just l ... Read full article.