Blood and starlight (to use my favorite exclamation from Arkady Martine’s A Memory Called Empire), where to even begin?
Ok. Since the spring of 2024, I have earned my doctorate, moved to Italy to fulfill a postdoctoral research position at the University of Padova, and published multiple papers covering Venusian rift systems and coronae and a concept for a Titan orbiter mission.
Taking this in chronological order, I completed by doctoral dissertation “Tectonic and magmatic processes during extension in planetary lithospheres : rifting, spreading, delamination, and recycling on Earth and Venus” about comparative planetology between the solar system’s two most geologically active and dynamic terrestrial planets. It was quite literally accomplished by spending blood, sweat, tears, and therapy bills but I think it is a solid representation of my views on terrestrial planet evolution and geodynamics. It unifies my work supercontinent fragmentation and continental breakup on Earth with my study of extensional systems and coronae on Venus, and I’m damn proud of it.
While that was going on, I joined the University of Padova (more properly Università degli Studi di Padova) as a postdoctoral researcher attached to Dr. Barbara De Toffoli’s HECATE project. So far, HECATE has published articles that use fracture analysis of coronae to understand their seismic potential and confirmed the existence of lava tubes on Venus. For my part, I’ve worked on showing how coronae can resurface (or repave) their surroundings up to hundreds of kilometers away as a result of lava flows and tectonic disruption. While I’ve presented this work at conferences, the paper is currently under review.
What isn’t under review is my published article on the possibility of seafloor spreading on Venus! In it, we show that while seafloor spreading on Venus would look identical to Earth’s mid-ocean ridges, the majority of Venus’s rifts are classical full- and half-graben. One exception to this is Artemis Corona, where ephemeral subduction or delamination of the crust is driving back-arc extension and therefore “seafloor spreading” along Britomartis Chasma. All this suggests that processes similar to plate tectonics are only possible under special circumstances on Venus and are limited to patches of Venus’s surface rather than as a global system of plate tectonics.
Still hard at work on new projects. See you out there.