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Wrinkle ridges, stress domains, and kinematics of Venusian plains
Author(s) -
McGill George E.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
geophysical research letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.007
H-Index - 273
eISSN - 1944-8007
pISSN - 0094-8276
DOI - 10.1029/93gl02635
Subject(s) - venus , wrinkle , geology , landform , planet , terrain , crust , geophysics , astrobiology , paleontology , geography , cartography , physics , astronomy , materials science , composite material
Wrinkle ridges are nearly ubiquitous landforms on the plains of Venus. By analogy with similar structures on other planets, venusian wrinkle ridges are inferred to trend normal to the direction of maximum principal compression in the crust, an inference that is verified by geometrical relationships with positive and negative relief features on Venus. Because plains are the dominant terrain on Venus, wrinkle ridges provide an excellent opportunity to determine the orientations of shallow crustal principal stress trajectories over most of the planet. In most places there are two or more sets of wrinkle ridges, and commonly one of these persists over a very large area, defining a regional stress domain. Intersection relationships indicate that these domains differ in age.