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Research Articles
Long-form explainers and write-ups from my research on Venus, Mars, and the icy worlds of the outer solar system.
How the Crust of Early Mars Deformed
The circum-Tharsis wrinkle ridge system is the strongest tectonic imprint early Mars left behind. Tharsis grew into the largest volcanic province on the planet, and in building it loaded the lithosphere and redistributed stress across thousands of kilometres. The ridges are what that did to the…
Venus's Molten Fault Lines: How Magma Lubrication Shapes a Planet's Giant Cracks
Venus gets called Earth's sister planet on the strength of its size, mass and bulk composition. The surface is a different matter: around 460 °C, no water anywhere, and a tectonic style that does not resemble ours.
Venus's Giant Eye: How Low-Angle Faults Reveal a Planet's Volcanic Past
Coronae are among the strangest structures in the solar system: roughly circular features, hundreds to thousands of kilometres across, each ringed by a fractured annulus of ridges around a sunken middle. They are unique to Venus, and what makes them has been argued about for thirty years.
How Computer Models Helped Us Solve a 4-Billion-Year-Old Martian Mystery
Open a topographic map of Mars and the first thing you notice is that the northern half sits about three kilometres lower than the southern half. That is the Martian dichotomy, and how it got there has been argued over for decades.