ETH Zurich Simulations Find Wide Rift Flanks Signal Venus Is Still Tectonically Active
New 3D simulations matched against 1990s Magellan imagery suggest some Venusian rift valleys are widening 3 to 10 centimeters a year, indicating recent tectonic activity.
Editor's Note ·
- Clarification:
- The article states, citing the Nature Geoscience paper, that wide flank uplifts fade within roughly 15 to 100 million years and that 'three named rift systems — Ganis, Dali, and Devana Chasmata — show topography consistent with tectonic extension,' and separately that the simulations were 'built around a 150-kilometer-thick thermal lithosphere and three different crustal compositions.' The Nature Geoscience source (https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-026-02044-8) was inaccessible to editorial review — both the archived snapshot and a live re-fetch redirected to an idp.nature.com authentication wall with no visible abstract or article text — and the accessible Phys.org source does not contain these figures either. These specific details could not be independently verified at the time of publication.
Overview
Venus has long been treated as a geologically dormant world, but new modeling from ETH Zurich argues that some of its rift valleys are actively widening today. Researchers built a new three-dimensional computer model to simulate high-resolution Venusian rifts and found that broad ridges along the edges of rift valleys, known as rift flanks, form specifically when rifts are geologically young and still extending, according to Phys.org. The model puts the extension rate at 3 to 10 centimeters per year, according to Phys.org.
The work, published in Nature Geoscience, was led by Taras Gerya, chair of geodynamics at ETH Zurich’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, with master’s student Xi Yang serving as lead author under Gerya’s supervision, according to Phys.org.
What We Know
- Earlier models of Venusian rifting relied on simplified material assumptions and were mostly two-dimensional; Yang and his team’s model simulates high-resolution, 3D rifts for the first time, according to Phys.org.
- The simulations show rift flanks behave like a geological clock: “rift flanks tend to flatten rapidly after movement ceases; the older the rift system, the less steep and narrow its flanks,” according to Phys.org. Because Venus lacks oceans and Earth-style erosion, its flanks subside instead through crustal relaxation.
- The Nature Geoscience paper reports that wide flank uplifts fade within roughly 15 to 100 million years after rifting stops, and finds that three named rift systems — Ganis, Dali, and Devana Chasmata — show topography consistent with tectonic extension that is presently active or occurred within the last tens of millions of years.
- The simulations, built around a 150-kilometer-thick thermal lithosphere and three different crustal compositions, were checked against real surface data: “wide and high rift flanks are not only produced by the computer model but can also be seen in images of the Venusian surface from the Magellan probe during its 1990s mission,” according to Phys.org and Nature Geoscience.
- “The results help us to better assess the tectonic activity on Venus,” Gerya said, according to Phys.org.
- The findings feed directly into upcoming Venus exploration: ETH geophysics professors Paul Tackley and Gerya are contributing instruments to the European Space Agency’s EnVision orbiter, which is scheduled to launch in the early 2030s and will study the planet from its core to its upper atmosphere, according to Phys.org.
What We Don’t Know
The study infers recent activity from topographic patterns matched to a model, not from direct, real-time measurement of ground movement on Venus — no spacecraft currently in orbit can track rift widening as it happens. It also remains unclear how many of Venus’s other rift systems, beyond the three chasmata singled out in the paper, show the same young-flank signature. Confirming the picture with direct observation will likely wait for EnVision and other Venus-focused missions in the next decade.