Ottawa submits new greenhouse gas targets to UN, plans changes to carbon-pricing 'benchmark'

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Environment minister says he wants to even out differences and exemptions in carbon pricing among provinces

Aaron Wherry · CBC News · Posted: Jul 12, 2021 10:30 AM ET | Last Updated: 7 hours ago

People attend a climate change protest in Montreal on Saturday, September 26, 2020. (Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press)

The federal government officially submitted Canada's new greenhouse gas emissions target to the United Nations this morning, formally committing the country to reducing emissions by 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030.

Meanwhile, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson has written to his provincial counterparts to say he plans to amend the federal carbon-pricing benchmark to eliminate some of the discrepancies and exemptions that have emerged as provinces implemented their own policies over the last few years.

"As we discussed, and as our respective officials have discussed over the past several months, Canada has committed to updating its approach to carbon pricing to make it more fair and rigorous," Wilkinson said in the letter sent to provincial ministers today.

In an interview, Wilkinson said the federal government is willing to work "collaboratively" with the provinces but he doesn't expect support for the changes to be unanimous.

Minister of Environment and Climate Change Jonathan Wilkinson speaks to media during the Liberal cabinet retreat at the Fairmont Hotel in Winnipeg on Jan. 19, 2020. (Mike Sudoma/Canadian Press)

Canada's submission to the UN — formally known as the Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) — confirms a target that was first announced in April when Canadian officials participated in an international climate summit convened by the United States.

According to the NDC, that target would mean cutting Canada's total emissions to between 401 and 438 megatonnes by 2030. In 2018, the last year for which information is available, Canada accounted for 729 Mt of emissions.

The Liberal government says that when current and recently announced policies are taken into account, emissions are on track to fall to 468 Mt by 2030 — a decline of 36 per cent below 2005 levels.

Six months to come up with a plan

Under the terms of the recently enacted Net-Zero Emissions Accountability Act, Wilkinson has six months to present a plan to meet the new target.

In the meantime, Wilkinson is looking to make changes to the federal carbon-pricing benchmark, which sets out the minimum standards provinces must meet when they implement their own fuel charge for consumers or an industrial system for large emitters.

A recent report from the Institute for Climate Choices, commissioned by the federal government, said that design choices and exemptions at the provincial level have led to differences in coverage and price across the country.

In the interests of making emissions reductions efficient and fair, the report's authors said, federal, provincial and territorial ministers should "should work towards developing a common standard of emissions coverage for carbon pricing" — and "point-of-sale rebates" on fuel should be eliminated.

Levelling the field

"If you look at the price on pollution, it accounts for about a third of the [total] reductions that we have identified, but it only does so if, in fact, systems are structured in such a way that they drive incremental reductions and that they are relatively similar across provinces and territories," Wilkinson told CBC News.

The new benchmark would come into effect for 2023.

• UN chief pressures rich countries to clarify how they'll help poorer nations tackle climate change

In his letter, Wilkinson said provincial policies will have to cover the same proportion of emissions that would be covered by the federal backstop and that measures to prevent "carbon leakage" — businesses relocating production to countries with lower emissions standards — will be restricted to sectors that require it.

Governments will not be allowed to "weaken the price signal" with rebates or reductions in other gas taxes, Wilkinson wrote. In two provinces — New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island — carbon taxes on fuel were partially offset by corresponding cuts to the provincial gas tax.

New requirements would also be applied to the purchase of carbon offsets, Wilkinson said in his letter.

NET ZERO IS A HYDROCARBON FAKE

To solve the climate crisis, let's have a race – first to net zero wins

In this race the dark horse of oil and gas just might be the unexpected winner, says 

Michael Binnion · for CBC Opinion · Posted: Jul 12, 2021 

According to Michael Binnion, wind and solar have farther

 to go to get to the net zero finish line than oil and gas. (CBC News)


This column is an opinion from Michael Binnion, the executive director of the Modern Miracle Network and CEO of Questerre Energy Corporation. 

To solve the climate crisis, let's have a race – first to net zero wins!

As humanity grapples with the environmental challenges of a population expected to grow to 10 billion people by 2050, we need all hands on deck to save the planet.

The "great reset" and new "green economy" approaches that seek to phase out our conventional energy options, risk being too little and too late. We need action. Soon.

I say, let's make this a fair race and give all energy industries a chance to solve the net zero energy problem. It promises to be exciting because in this race the dark horse of oil and gas just might be the unexpected winner.

I'm placing my bet there, no need to see the odds first. Let me tell you why.

Technological change a constant

First and foremost, no one does innovation and improvement like Canada's energy industry. The oil and gas industry of today is nothing like the oil and gas industry of 15 years ago, which was dramatically different from the one of 30 years ago. Technological change is a constant in oil and gas and few industries are as quick to follow and reward successful innovators. And to build upon innovation.

This leads to the emerging concept of a circular economy. Most of us know that CO2 is the building block of life that mother nature recycles into growing forests and every other form of life, including you and me. But that is not all, a myriad of industrial products from cement to calcium carbonates to fertilizers are also made from or with CO2. Circular economy technologies seek to duplicate those natural CO2 recycling processes with industrial processes that make useful commercial products.

Incredibly, using technologies that exist today, we can turn CO2 from a disposal problem into a useful feedstock. Mimicking mother nature, we can transform CO2 into valuable products. There are already companies working to commercialize CO2 conversion technologies for ethylene, ethanol, methanol, propanol, calcium carbonate, magnesium carbonate, cement, concrete, and many other everyday products. There are also high-tech carbon nanotubes, carbon fibre, and graphene possibilities.

Shell Canada's Quest carbon capture and storage project at the Scotford Upgrader north of Edmonton. If we apply the three energy Rs – reduce, recycle, and return our emissions underground, oil and gas can get to net zero first, according to Michael Binnion. (Jason Franson/The Canadian Press)

There is even a high-end and extremely pure vodka, produced from CO2, that is commercially available online today. I like to say organic chemistry is cool, and Air Vodka proves me right.

As part of the circular economy, we can convert fossil fuels to zero emissions hydrogen for energy and create an industrial quality source of CO2 to use as a feedstock to make things.

We can apply the three energy Rs – reduce, recycle, and return our emissions underground. A lot of that technology already exists and is advancing rapidly. This circular economy model has the advantage of bolting on to our existing energy systems, and, for many technologies, it does so at lower costs than other renewable energy sources.

More breakthroughs inevitable

Opponents of Canada's energy industry assume that oil and gas technology is static. In fact, it is changing rapidly and the industry has only just begun to explore these opportunities. If history is a guide, as these emerging carbon conversion technologies roll out, we will inevitably see breakthrough improvements in efficiencies and economics.

So why am I betting on oil and gas to win the race to net zero?

Because wind and solar have farther to go to get to the net zero finish line than oil and gas. They need rare earths, electronics grade silicon, and lots of concrete and steel – and all of those need oil and gas. You cannot build a windmill with a windmill but soon you will be able to build a zero emissions windmill with fossil fuels derived from the three Rs of the circular economy. That race is on.

It's a race that no matter who wins, the environment wins. With all hands on deck we have a chance to meet the energy demands of the 10 billion people expected by 2050 with a higher standard of living, but smaller environmental impacts than today.

Where do you put your bets?


ABOUT THE AUTHOR


Michael Binnion
is the executive director of the Modern Miracle Network, whose mission it is to encourage Canadians to have reasoned conversations about energy issues, and CEO of Questerre Energy Corporation, which is seeking to apply circular economy technologies to a natural gas discovery in Quebec.

Europe’s climate masterplan aims to slash emissions within a decade

Reuters | July 12, 2021 |

The EU is set to unveil policy package with eye on emissions goal. (Stock image.)

The European Union is set to take the lead in climate policy action among the world’s biggest greenhouse gas emitters this week, with a raft of ambitious plans designed to cut emissions drastically over the next decade.


The policies, if approved, would put the bloc – the world’s third-largest economy – on track to meet its 2030 goal of reducing planet-warming emissions by 55% from 1990 levels.

The “Fit for 55” package being released on Wednesday will face months of negotiations between the 27 EU countries and the European Parliament.

Other major economies including China and the United States – the world’s top two emitters – have committed to achieving net zero emissions, which scientists say the world must reach by 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change.


THE “FIT FOR 55” PACKAGE BEING RELEASED ON WEDNESDAY WILL FACE MONTHS OF NEGOTIATIONS BETWEEN THE 27 EU COUNTRIES AND THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT

But the EU is the first to overhaul its legislation to drive greener choices within this decade among the bloc’s 25 million businesses and nearly half a billion people.

“Everybody has a target. But translating it into policies that lead to real emission reductions, that’s the most difficult part,” said Jos Delbeke, a former senior policymaker who developed some of the EU’s flagship climate policies.

By 2019, the EU had cut its emissions by 24% from 1990 levels.
Economy-wide

The European Commission will propose 12 policies targeting energy, industry, transport and the heating of buildings.

Emissions in Europe’s electricity sector are falling fast, but other sectors have been stuck.

Emissions from cars, planes and ships, which make up a quarter of the EU total, are rising. Buildings produce a third of the bloc’s emissions and, like Europe’s factories, many homes use heat produced from fossil fuels.

The draft measures aim to encourage companies and consumers to choose greener options over polluting ones.

For example, a leaked draft of one proposal would tax polluting jet fuel for the first time and give low-carbon aviation fuels a 10-year tax holiday. A revamp of the EU carbon market is also expected to hike CO2 costs for industry, power plants and airlines, and force ships to pay for their pollution.

The list of proposals is long. Tougher EU CO2 standards for cars could effectively ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars in 2035. EU countries will face more ambitious targets for expanding renewable energy.

Brussels will also announce the details of its world-first carbon border tariff, targeting imports of goods produced abroad with high emissions such as steel and cement. That has unnerved EU trading partners, including Russia and China.
Climate policies come home

The political road ahead will likely be rough, as EU countries and the European Parliament negotiate the proposals.

Already, the plans have exposed familiar rifts between richer western and Nordic EU states where electric vehicle sales are soaring, and poorer eastern countries that are worried about the social cost of weaning their economies off coal.

EU member capitals are particularly worried about the Commission’s plan to launch a carbon market for transport and home heating, potentially raising household fuel bills.

The Commission has promised a social fund to shield low-income households from the costs, and is urging countries to use the EU’s 800-billion-euro covid-19 recovery fund to help people insulate their homes and create jobs in clean technologies such as hydrogen.

By making climate policies more visible to EU citizens than ever before, “Fit for 55” is set to test public support for ambitious climate action.

“There’s no hiding that this package comes in the middle of a massive socio-economic crisis,” said Manon Dufour of independent climate change think-tank E3G. The EU “has to be even more careful about the social impacts.”

TOUGHER EU CO2 STANDARDS FOR CARS COULD EFFECTIVELY BAN SALES OF NEW PETROL AND DIESEL CARS IN 2035

Policymakers are also braced for a storm of industry lobbying. Europe’s steel and cement sectors are already fighting plans to end free CO2 permits and some of the sectors due to be covered by the carbon border tariff say they do not want to be included.

Past attempts to tighten CO2 standards for carmakers have faced fierce industry opposition. But with European giants like Volkswagen already committed to ending combustion-engine car sales in Europe in the 2030s, some governments say now is the time to bring laggards into line.

“The Commission needs to basically wake up and smell the coffee – that now is the time to actually cement that into legislation,” an EU diplomat said regarding the potential proposal to ban sales of new combustion engine cars by 2035.
First-mover (dis)advantages

With its world-first package, the EU also aims to burnish its global climate leadership position. It is unclear if that will be enough, however, to elicit similarly ambitious action from other major economies at the U.N. climate conference in November in Glasgow, Scotland.

“The challenge is that other big players – China and the U.S. specifically – will need to be on board,” said Tom Rivett-Carnac, the U.N.’s chief political strategist in the run-up to the 2015 Paris Agreement. “Whether the EU can achieve this diplomatically remains to be seen.”

Brussels says it is time to take Europe’s climate policies global. Much of the diplomatic lift required will be on the carbon border tariff, which the EU says will put its firms on more equal footing with competitors in countries with weaker carbon policies.

The proposals would also push EU industry to invest in expensive green technologies. Moving early could give European firms a competitive edge in global markets for new products like low-carbon steel produced from green hydrogen, but producing those products will cost manufacturers more.

“At the end of this transformation, our economy will look a lot better, and we can get the climate crisis under control,” Frans Timmermans, the EU Commissioner in charge of climate policy, told CNN last week. “And that’s the whole point.”

(By Kate Abnett; Editing by John Chalmers, Katy Daigle and Jason Neely)

Metal pollution, tourism threaten drinking water around Mount Everest

Valentina Ruiz Leotaud | July 12, 2021 | 

Khumbu Glacier, Everest Base Camp, Nepal. (Image by Rick McCharles, Flickr).

New research published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, reveals that wind-transported metal pollution from mining paired with activities linked to the tourism industry is threatening drinking water around Mount Everest.


According to the study, there is particular concern regarding the health of the over 3,500 residents and several thousand seasonal climbers who depend on the Khumbu Glacier melt for drinking water and irrigation. This is because precipitation and melt can contain toxic substances which means that as snow and glaciers melt, entrapped chemicals are released.

Local pollution sources include aviation fuel for helicopters, generators, batteries and incinerators, as well as human waste at Everest Base Camp. Distant pollution sources, on the other hand, include mining, metal smelting, oil, and coal combustion.

 

Researcher Heather Clifford collects samples near Everest Base Camp. (Image by Brittany Mumma, Courtesy of the National Geographic Society and the University of Maine).

In the paper, lead author Heather Clifford, a doctoral student in the Climate Change Institute at the University of Maine, explained that long-range transport and deposition of aerosols in the Himalayas are strongly influenced by the seasonal migration of the South Asian monsoon that, along with westerly winds, transport these chemicals.

According to Clifford, while heavy metals occur naturally in the environment, human activity results in significantly higher levels in the atmosphere, which can negatively impact human and ecosystem health.

“Further spatial environmental monitoring, specifically looking into the chemical and biological makeup of the streams, could help to assess health impacts, water quality and potential sources of heavy metals,” the scientist said in a media statement.

To carry on her research, Clifford analyzed the chemical composition of pre-monsoon samples of stream water at 4,300–5,250 meters and snow at 5,200–6,665 meters from Mount Everest, Mount Lobuche, and the Imja Valley, in addition to a shallow ice core recovered from the Khumbu Glacier at 5,300 meters.

“Pre-monsoon aerosol deposition is dominated by dust originating from western sources and less frequently by transport from southerly air mass sources as demonstrated by evidence of one of the strongest recorded pre-monsoon events emanating from the Bay of Bengal, Cyclone Fani,” the study reads. “Elevated concentrations of human-sourced metals (e.g., Pb, Bi, As) are found in surface snow and stream chemistry collected in the Khumbu region.”

Following her analyses, the scientist suggests it is important to start measuring lead, bismuth, and other trace elements in the atmosphere and snow so that it is possible to fingerprint the sources of the human pollutants.

In Clifford’s view, this is the first analysis of its kind on Khumbu Glacier ice and the first detailed characterization of pre-monsoon snow/water elemental chemistry for the region.

Spanish regulator blocks Berkeley Energia’s Retortillo uranium mine

Reuters | July 12, 2021 |

Salamanca mine. Photo by Berkeley Energia.

Spain’s nuclear regulator on Monday blocked Berkeley Energia’s planned uranium mine in the west of the country on safety concerns, in a move that was welcomed by environmental campaigners and sent the company’s stock plunging.


The CSN regulator said it took the decision due to a lack of reliability and a high level of uncertainty over how radioactive waste would be stored at the facility.


The London-headquartered company, whose Madrid-listed shares slumped over 12% to 0.34 euros, said in a statement it refuted the CSN’s assessment and was disappointed with the decision.

“The Company will strongly defend its position and will immediately consider the range of legal options available to it,” it said.

The Stop Uranio environmental protection group, which has been campaigning against the mine’s development, welcomed the decision.

“After a decade of mobilizing, we start to see the light at the end of the tunnel with a decision based around technical criteria,” it said.

Berkeley’s Retortillo project in the western region of Salamanca received preliminary approval in early 2013 but has since faced local opposition.

Reuters reported in 2018 that the government would not grant Berkeley the necessary permits to operate.

The company had said the mine would run for 14 years, generating investment of over 250 million euros ($297 million)and more than 2,500 jobs in the region.

Petra fetches over $40m for 39-carat blue diamond
Cecilia Jamasmie | July 12, 2021 | 

The 39.34-carat blue diamond. (Image courtesy of Petra Diamonds.)

South Africa’s Petra Diamonds (LON:PDL) has fetched $40.2 million for a 39.34-carat blue diamond it recovered at its iconic Cullinan mine in April, the company’s highest price ever for a single stone.


It means the buyer, a partnership between diamond giant De Beers and Diacore, paid $1,021,357 per carat.

“This new milestone for Petra follows the sale of the 299 carat Type IIa white diamond in March this year and the five blue diamonds comprising the Letlapa Tala Collection in November 2020,” chief executive Rihard Duffy said in the statement.

Petra’s Blue Moon of Josephine diamond, cut from a 29-carat rough blue diamond, sold for $48.5 million in 2015.

The figure corresponds to a price of $4 million per carat, which remains the world record price per carat ever paid for a diamond at an auction.

Cullinan is known as the world’s most important source of blue diamonds, as well as being the birthplace of the 3,106-carat Cullinan diamond, which was cut to form the 530-carat Great Star of Africa. The operation also yielded the 317-carat Second Star of Africa. They are the two largest diamonds in the British Crown Jewels.

Type IIb blue diamonds are so rare that their age has not been established. Recent studies on minerals trapped inside these diamonds imply that they are among the deepest-formed diamonds ever found, created at depths in excess of 500km below the Earth’s surface.

GOOD NEWS

Congo likely to start artisanal cobalt buying within 8 weeks
Reuters | July 12, 2021 | 7:18 am Battery Metals Africa Cobalt

Credit: Fair Cobalt Alliance

The Democratic Republic of Congo is expected to start buying cobalt from artisanal miners within eight weeks as it aims to become the only legal buyer from miners in the informal sector.


The government is looking to capitalise on soaring demand for rechargeable lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles and to curb illegal exports which strip the state of needed tax revenue. It is also aiming to end unsafe working practices and child labour.

Artisanal miners extract cobalt by hand in precarious conditions, often working on illegal or only semi-regulated sites. Most of this material is bought by Chinese traders and sold on to refiners in China.

The state buyer, Entreprise Generale du Cobalt (EGC), launched in March and announced a responsible sourcing standard.

Under the new regulations, tunneling will be banned on EGC-approved sites, and pits are not to exceed 10 metres in depth. Miners are required to wear personal protective equipment and carry a site registration identity card.

Supporting the EGC is non-governmental organisation Pact, with a brief to ensure safety, human rights and traceability of the cobalt produced by miners at artisanal sites.

The EGC will be buying artisanal cobalt in four to eight weeks based on “current knowledge and situation”, Mickaël Daudin, a deputy director at Pact, told Reuters.

“The selected site is Kasulo,” he said.

EGC confirmed it was aiming to buy artisanal cobalt from the Kasulo concession, which is currently operated by Congo Dongfang Mining (CDM), a unit of China’s Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt .


DRC PRODUCED AROUND 100,000 TONNES OF COBALT LAST YEAR OR ABOUT 71% OF THE GLOBAL TOTAL, ACCORDING TO DARTON COMMODITIES’ REVIEW OF THE MARKET

Congo’s artisanal miners are the second largest source of cobalt worldwide after the country’s industrial mines owned by companies such as Glencore and China Molybdenum .

DRC produced around 100,000 tonnes of cobalt last year or about 71% of the global total, according to Darton Commodities’ review of the market.

“Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) volumes are believed to have fallen to around 7,000 tonnes in 2020,” the review said.

The cobalt market is following closely the progress of the EGC project as it would allow consumers to use artisanal cobalt, radically changing the landscape of the global market.

Traders had expected EGC to begin buying artisanal cobalt months ago.

“We’re already midway through the year and they still haven’t bought any,” a cobalt trader said. “The Chinese are still the only buyers of artisanal cobalt.”

CRU analyst Harry Fisher said ASM production is hard to predict, but estimates it could be between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes this year.

Commodities trader Trafigura last November agreed a five-year cobalt supply deal with EGC under which it will finance the creation of controlled artisanal mining zones, buying centres and logistics to trace supply.

(By Pratima Desai; Editing by Jason Neely)

Renewables get EU regulatory boost

MINING.com Editor | July 11, 2021 | 


The European Commission, European Union’s (EU) regulatory arm, has revised its renewable energy law to set targets for using sustainable fuels in transport, heating, and cooling.


The plan requires emissions from new cars and vans to fall by 65% by 2030 and by 100% by 2035, compared to 2021 levels.

THE REVISIONS ALSO INCLUDE A PROPOSAL TO BOOST THE POWER THAT THE EU RECEIVES FROM RENEWABLE ENERGY TO 40% FROM THE CURRENT 32% BY 2030

These stricter pollution standards are accompanied by rules for national governments to bolster vehicle charging infrastructure. The revisions also include a proposal to boost the power that the EU receives from renewable energy to 40% from the current 32% by 2030.

This law can provide guidelines to other countries shifting towards net-zero emissions and encourage investments in the sectors pushing innovation in renewable energy.

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA) also reported last week that growth in large-scale solar capacity in the country was projected to exceed that of wind in 2022 for the first time.

The EIA’s short-term energy outlook estimates that wind and solar capacity will reach 15% of total US generation by next year, compared to 11% in 2020. A forecasted 17 GW of solar capacity will be added in 2022, compared to 6 GW for wind.

The following chart shows that renewable energy generation worldwide increased in 2020 compared to 2019, with a decrease in oil, natural gas, and coal for electricity generation use.

China's Mars rover sends new photos of red planet's surface

Updated 09-Jul-2021
CGTN

The China National Space Administration on Friday released new photos of the Martian surface captured by the country's first Mars rover Zhurong.

Zhurong has been working on the red planet for 54 Martian days and has traveled more than 300 meters.

Since it drove onto Mars, the rover has been traveling south and conducting detections. Its navigation camera has captured the images of the landform along the way.

During its journey, the surface-search radar, meteorology monitor and magnetic field detector all work to conduct survey.

When it encounters special landforms such as rocks and sand dunes, the surface composition detector and multispectral camera on it will carry out fixed-point detection.

 

Rocks on Mars. /CNSA

Rocks and dust on Mars. /CNSA

Sand dunes on Mars. /CNSA

Sand dunes on Mars. /CNSA

Stones on Mars. /CNSA


China's Tianwen-1 Mars probe was launched on July 23, 2020.

On May 15, 2021, the lander, carrying the Zhurong rover, touched down in the southern part of Utopia Planitia, a vast plain in the northern hemisphere of Mars. A week later, Zhurong separated from the lander and started exploring the red planet, making China the second country after the United States to land and operate a rover on Mars.

 

Venus’ Surface Tectonics is More Like Pack ice on Earth

POSTED ONJULY 12, 2021 BY ANDY TOMASWICK

Planets move in mysterious ways.  Or at least their surfaces do.  Earth famously has a system of tectonic plates that drives the movement of its crust.  Those plate tectonics are ultimately driven by the flow of material in the mantle – the layer directly below the crust.  Now, scientists have found a slightly different deformation mechanic on our nearest sister planet – Venus.

The research, carried out by Dr. Paul Byrne of North Carolina State University and his colleagues, used data from NASA’s Magellan spacecraft which visited Venus back in the 90s.  While orbiting the planet, the probe collected a radar map of its surface, which is obscured by a thick atmosphere at wavelengths visible to the human eye.

One of the most famous pictures generated from Magellan’s trip to Venus was this one of Maat Mons. This NASA Magellan image was released on April 22, 1992.
Credit – NASA

In part of that radar map, the researchers noticed something interesting – a series of blocks where the crust of the planet (known as the “lithosphere”) looked like it had moved.  This finding flew in the face of the convention wisdom of Venus, which held that Venus’ lithosphere was immobile.  

As any good scientist knows, if the data disproves an old theory, a new theory is required.  So the team set out modeling the deformation to see if they could figure out what might have caused it.  The answer appears to be that he deformation is caused by the slow movement of the planet’s interior.  

UT video discussing the surface of Venus.

What’s more, the researchers also think the process that caused these deformations might still be ongoing.  Venus famously has active volcanoes that are another way its surface deforms itself.  These volcanoes form lava plains, which are relatively young in geological terms.  Some of those lava plains had evidence of the deformation in Magellan’s data, implying that, even after having been recently resurfaced due to volcanic activity, Venus’ lithosphere is deformed again by its active interior.

That active interior causes deformations that interact similarly to ice sheets that are broken up and jostled on top of each other.  Sometimes those create even small ice sheets or jagged patterns, and the patterns that result from that jostling look similar to what the researcher saw on the lava plains of Venus.

UT video discussing what caused Venus to end up in the hellish state it is in.

Luckily they won’t be the last ones to look – a group of three new missions will be visiting our sister planet in the coming decades.  They will sport new and improved sensors, including one (VERITAS) whose primary mission is to accurately map the planet’s surface.  It will undoubtedly see the formations that Magellan found, but maybe higher resolution data will lead yet more insights.

Learn More –
NCSU – ‘Pack Ice’ Tectonics Reveal Venus’ Geological Secrets
PNAS – A globally fragmented and mobile lithosphere on Venus
BBC – Signs of geological activity found on Venus
Technology Review – Scientists might have spotted tectonic activity inside Venus

Lead Image –
Picture of one of the large blocks in Venus’ low-lands that they found, known as Nüwa Campus
Credit – Paul K. Byrne and Sean C. Solomon