Anonymous:

Venus has LOCKED tectonic plates??? How does that work? How are they even counted as individual plates if it’s the tectonic equivalent of Pangea?

domestic-maniac:

lew-basnight:

kelssiel:

jumpingjacktrash:

mazarinedrake:

jumpingjacktrash:

bunjywunjy:

it’s not so much that Venus’s tectonic plates are locked, it’s more that it never had them in the first place!

which is a major surprise, actually, because Venus is the most Earth-like of the other planets in our solar system.

surprise?

“what,” you may say, flailing in consternation, “about Mars?? why are we trying to colonize Mars if Venus is more Earth-like???”

and it’s a good question! Venus IS technically more Earth-like in the sense that it’s right next door, is a solid 80% the size of Earth, and has both a working atmosphere and a liquid mantle composed of molten rock, BUT- it’s also important to note that Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system and it rains boiling sulfuric acid at almost all times! our first probes to the damn place actually melted. MELTED.

this is what Hell looks like.

BUT ANYWAY so Venus is the planet in our solar system that’s the MOST physically similar to Earth, our dear mother who does not rain boiling sulfuric acid on our heads hardly at all ever, so it’s kind of a shock that its geology is COMPLETELY FUCKING DIFFERENT.

see, Earth’s outer crust is broken up into a series of mind-breakingly-massive tectonic plates that sort of skid around on top of the liquid mantle, slowly drifting in different directions driven by Earth’s rotation and bonking into each other randomly like a 300-million-year-long Pinball tournament!

but on Venus, the entire outer crust is a single solid piece sitting on top of the liquid mantle, like the peel of an orange.

though not as good for you. because of the whole Boiling Acid thing.

and contrary to what you might think, this actually makes Venus a VERY VIOLENT place! the outer crust twists and deforms slightly as the liquid mantle spins under it, like a water balloon being flung repeatedly against a wall by a small child, but all of that force can’t really be dispersed because the crust is a single solid piece of rigid rock!

so what happens is that this force builds and builds and BUILDS until Venus can’t take the strain anymore and has a very volcanic tantrum about it.

unlike the rest of the solar system, the surface of Venus is made of relatively new and entirely volcanic rock- because the entire planet is basically having a planet-wide eruption event at all times, with multiple huge volcanos just spewing gigantic amounts of liquid rock everywhere like it’s their damn job, to the point where Venus is just getting resurfaced like a McDonalds parking lot every epoch or so.

aren’t you glad Earth doesn’t do this? I am SO glad Earth doesn’t do this.

(much, anyway)

uh anyway that’s why we’re trying to colonize Mars instead, and why plate tectonics are a GOOD thing! thanks for coming to my TED talk bye

earth kinda attempted to do this once (google ‘siberian traps’) and it caused the biggest extinction event in its history. so that was fun.

From wikipedia, bolding mine –

This extinction event, also colloquially called the Great Dying, affected all life on Earth, and is estimated to have killed about 96% of all marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species living at the time.[11][12][13] Some of the disastrous events that impacted the Earth continued to repeat themselves on Earth five to six million years after the initial extinction occurred.[14] Over time a small portion of the life that survived the extinction was able to repopulate and expand starting with low trophic levels (local communities) until the higher trophic levels (large habitats) were able to be re-established.[14] Calculations of sea water temperature from δ18O measurements indicate that at the peak of the extinction, the Earth underwent lethally hot global warming, in which equatorial ocean temperatures exceeded 40 °C (104 °F).[15] It took roughly eight to nine million years for any diverse ecosystem to be re-established; however, new classes of animals were established after the extinction that did not exist beforehand.[14]

Yikes!

note that it wasn’t the lava that made everything so hot, it was the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gasses spewed out by the volcanoes.

also, The Great Dying is the most metal name of any science fact ever.

Does anyone else find it somehow reassuring that “the end of the world” has happened before, like a bunch of times, and will happen again, a bunch of times? Like when I was smaller that was scary, something that got me all worked up and panicky. But as a grown-up, I find it somehow soothing to know that the sky going black, the heavens raining fire and poison gas, 96% of all life that I could recognize will just -whoosh- be gone? And there just won’t be… anything? For a few million years? And then, slowly and gradually… a whole new chapter starts, one that would be totally alien and inhospitable to me, in fact no doubt hostile to me, as I am now? It actually makes me hopeful, somehow. Like fomo has no effect on me. Meh, so I didn’t see the superhero movie. I didn’t go to that party. So what? We’re riding a mind-boggling huge plate that’s surfing around on a seething ocean of boiling iron. I can hardly even believe I exist in the first place. Just eating cherries on the back porch is a fuckin triumph.

That’s called Optimistic nihilism my friend, and it’s honestly great.