@misc{Ghail:2026:10.5194/epsc2026-974,
author = {Ghail, R and Crouch, E and Mason, P},
doi = {10.5194/epsc2026-974},
title = {The Messinian Salinity Crisis and the Lost Oceans of Venus},
type = {Other},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/epsc2026-974},
year = {2026}
}

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TY  - GEN
AB  - <jats:p>Venus is the only other Earth-sized planet in our Solar System, volcanically active and rich in volatiles, but extremely hot, dry, and hostile to life. Models suggest either that Venus was always thus [1], or that in principle it could support oceans even today [2]. While the long history of the planet may be recorded in its ancient highlands, the lowland plains host a range of features suggestive of past water. Some canali are clearly lava channels [3], but others appear similar to fluvial [4] or submarine [5] channels, and our mapping of polygonal terrain implies a submarine sedimentary origin of them. The evidence is compelling that Venus once supported oceans and lost them.Possibly the closest terrestrial analogue for these conditions is the Messinian Salinity Crisis (MSC), 5·97 to 5·33 Ma ago, during which the Mediterranean Sea became repeatedly restricted, and evaporated in part or whole [6,7]. Nearly 10 km³ of gypsum and halite, in places several kilometres thick, were precipitated [8], with exposed salt flats covering most of the Mediterranean. With sea level lowered by 2 km or more, the major rivers—notably the Nile, Rhone, Ebron and Po—carved deep canyons into the continental margins, helping to maintain brine pools within the deepest basins. Remarkably, faunal exchanges took place across this inhospitable landscape [9].Conditions on Venus were even more extreme. In the earliest stages of the runaway greenhouse, photochemical sulphur cycling in a hot steamrich atmosphere would have resulted in transient, intense episodes of sulphuric acid rainfall. Under these conditions, the subaerial uplands would have experienced extreme chemical weathering and flash flood erosion [10], rapidly depositing smectite-rich clays into saturated brine ocean basins, generating thick piles of salt-rich sediments. Extensive erosion of the Venus uplands and infilling of the plains basins with sediment and salt may in p
AU  - Ghail,R
AU  - Crouch,E
AU  - Mason,P
DO  - 10.5194/epsc2026-974
PY  - 2026///
TI  - The Messinian Salinity Crisis and the Lost Oceans of Venus
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/epsc2026-974
UR  - https://doi.org/10.5194/epsc2026-974
ER  - 

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