Venus Lacks Plate Tectonics. But It Has Something Much More Quirky.

Scientists say giant slices of rock may move across the surface of Earth’s closest neighbor like pack ice floating in the sea.

Within the next decade or so, Venus will be visited by a fleet of spacecraft. This grand tour of the second planet, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the Cold War, is being driven by the quest to solve a profound planetary puzzle. Earth and Venus are the same size, are right next to each other and are made of the same star stuff. But Earth became an oasis while Venus became an acid-flecked inferno. Why? To derive an answer, every aspect of Venus requires examination. That includes the way its face has metamorphosed over time. Earth has plate tectonics, the gradual migration of continent-size geologic jigsaw pieces on its surface — a game-changing sculptor that crafts an exuberance of diverse volcanoes, giant mountain ranges and vast ocean basins. Venus doesn’t have plate tectonics. But according to a study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it may possess a quirky variation of that process: Parts of its surface seem to be made up of blocks that have shifted and twisted about, contorting their surroundings as they went.