Title: Formation of Venus’ Pancake Domes: Insights from Flexure
Abstract: Venus’ steep-sided domes, or “pancake” domes, are unique flat-topped circular volcanic edifices. They act as a load on the surface, causing lithospheric flexure. We conducted a flexural study of pancake domes to test the hypothesis that elastic thickness influences volcano shape. We also estimated the surface heat flow at pancake domes to determine if the high heat flow estimates at coronae, another type of volcanic feature on Venus, are universal. Pancake dome composition is still unknown, but previous studies suggested that they are formed from lava that is more viscous than typical basalt. To learn about their formation and composition, we modeled pancake domes as flows spreading over a bending elastic surface.
Biography: Madison Borrelli is a postdoc at Georgia Institute of Technology in the Planetary Geophysics group. She received her PhD from Arizona State University in 2024. Her research involves Venus and icy satellites, primarily focusing on surface processes. In particular, she is interested in studying impact craters and volcanism using remote sensing combined with numerical modeling.
To join virtually: Zoom
Contact: mborrelli6@gatech.edu
Google Scholar page: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=CGsceXYAAAAJ&hl=en
Recording: Zoom Recording (will be available within a week after the seminar)