Structural history of Maxwell Montes, Venus: implications for Venusian mountain belt formation

High-resolution Magellan images of Maxwell Montes and the other deformation belts allow us to determine the nature of surface deformation. Maxwell Montes and three other deformation belts surround the highland plateau Lakshmi Planum in Venus' northern hemisphere. Maxwell, the highest of these belts, stands 11 km above mean planetary radius. The paper presents a detailed structural and kinematic study of Maxwell Montes. One implication of the observations is that topography is independent of thin-skinned, broadly distributed, Maxwell deformation. Maxwell is apparently stable, with no observed extensional collapse. A "deformation-from-below' model is proposed for Maxwell, in which the crust deforms passively over structurally imbricated and thickened lower crust. This model may have implications for the other deformation belts. -from Authors