Questions tagged [geology]
Questions related to processes and principles related to the interior and the solid surface of a planetary body.
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Is there convection in Mars' mantle?
Mars is differentiated, with a core, a mantle and a crust. There are no (longer any) plate tectonics on Mars. Does this mean there is no convection in the mantle? Could there be convection in the ...
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Why are most lunar maria on the visible side?
Is there any reason why the Earth side of the Moon has enormous plains and mountains, while the far side contains just few small ones inside largest craters?
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Why is the Earth's center still hot after millions of years? [closed]
Why didn't the center of the earth cool after millions or billions of years? What keeps it hot?
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What is the temperature 55 km beneath the surface of Mars?
What is the temperature 55 km (34.18 miles) beneath the surface of Mars? The reason I ask is that I want to know if it might be habitable for a possible future colony if they could dig that deep (...
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How much mass do the volcanoes of Io erupt past escape velocity?
While trying to do some calculations to answer this quesion, I got stuck missing a crucial piece of data: I have no clue how much mass the volcanoes of Io manage to throw out of the gravity well of ...
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Are the Venusian "continents" likely to have existed before the global resurfacing event?
A topographic map of the surface of Venus shows the large highland areas Ishtar Terra, Aphrodite Terra and Lada Terra that have occasionally been described as "continents", plus various ...
user24157
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Are there any mountains/volcanoes steeper than Tharsis Tholus?
Although Olympus Mons is the tallest mountain in the solar system, its slope is so gradual that the peak cannot be seen from the plain; it is hidden by the planet's curvature (flank slope = 5.2°). The ...
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Determining North-South Line Via Watch Method: Theory & Reason
I recently read that if you're in the northern hemisphere and have an analog watch, then you can point the hour hand at the sun and know that a south line lies between (bisection) the hour hand and ...
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Io: Why so much sulfur?
Io is the only body in the Solar System whose crust is dominated by sulfur and its compounds. Carbon and nitrogen are also very common in the universe but we don't see them or their compounds in Io's ...
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How massive must a rocky body be to liquify adequately to eliminate internal mass concentrations that could disrupt natural satellite orbits?
Maybe a slightly weird question, and maybe more appropriate for some future geophysics SE, but I feel like this is what questions like Do moons have moons? are really driving at, and it just almost ...
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Should only spherical satellites be considered 'moons'? [closed]
Since Titan and Ganymede fall into the same category as Deimos and Phobos or the components of planetary rings, the category of moons, it's like if all asteroids were considered planets. Tiny ...
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