241 Petrology, Volcanology, and Mantle Plumes across the Solar System, Part I

This session focuses on recent advances in characterizing and quantifying volcanic processes throughout the Solar System in light of recent and upcoming missions to volcanically active worlds and resurgence in volcano science.

Wednesday, 22 October 2025
8:00 AM - 12:00 PM
HBGCC, 214C

La Palma as an Analog for Hot Spot Volcanism on Venus: Insights from Mineralogical Detection Techniques

Paper number: 241-4
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 8:55 AM – 9:10 AM

Authors

Abstract

The Analogs for VENus’ GEologically Recent Surfaces (AVENGERS) initiative provides a multi-disciplinary comparative framework to identify and analyze terrestrial analog sites relevant to recent and ongoing hotspot or plume volcanism on Venus. AVENGERS first investigated Mount Etna, Italy, Earth as a possible terrestrial analog, focusing on a comparison with Idunn Mons, Imdr Regio, Venus [1]. Here, we build on this work to investigate the Cumbre Vieja volcanic complex in La Palma at Canary Islands as a viable analog for Venus – to evaluate and compare different laboratory vs. flight-like instrument capabilities and measurement sensitivities linked to upcoming flight missions to Venus.

With the support of the Institute of Volcanology of Canary Islands (INVOLCAN), we conducted a LiDAR drone survey over the December 2021 pāhoehoe flows from Cumbre Vieja. The analyses and interpretation of the data for roughness (micro-topography) and thermal data of the area are ongoing, with implications for features that are likely to exist on Venus [4]. For this study, samples were collected of pāhoehoe and splits were sent to NASA JSC and Indian Space Research Organisation for analyses. We performed mineralogical analyses to compare laboratory measurements and relevant flight-like measurements: VNIR reflectance spectroscopy, simulated DAVINCI retrievals using NIR band-ratio [2], and bulk XRD for phase identification using both a standard high resolution laboratory XRD and a CheMinX flight-type instrument [3]. Our results show a range in spectral signatures consistent with fresh, unweathered basalts to an oxidized, hematite-bearing basalt. Ongoing XRD analyses will be used to correlate the detailed mineralogy to the spectra of each sample to determine what minerals could affect DAVINCI measurements from descent imaging and mass spectrometry [2]. Further, the XRD measurements will be used to constrain the performance of a CheMinX-type instrument for detecting mineralogy of fresh and weathered Venus analog basalts.

[1] D’Incecco et al. (2024) Icarus 441, 115959; [2] Garvin J. B. et al. (2022) Planet. Sci. J. 3 117; [3] Sarrazin P. et al. (2023) LPSC abstract #1365; [4] Garvin J.B. et al. (1985) J. Geophys. Res. 89 (B5)

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 57, No. 6

doi: 10.1130/abs/2025AM-412371

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