Venus Pancake Volcanoes Formed by Thick Lava and Flexible Crust

Venus is home to some of the most unusual volcanoes in our solar system—massive, flattened domes that resemble giant pancakes spread across the planet’s scorching surface. These so-called “pancake domes” have puzzled scientists for decades, who initially believed they formed solely from thick, slow-moving lava flows. However, a recent study sheds new light on the secret behind their unique shape: the planet’s flexible crust plays a crucial role alongside the lava.

Researchers focused on Narina Tholus, an enormous pancake dome stretching nearly 90 miles (145 kilometers) across. Using radar data from NASA’s 1990s Magellan mission, they created a virtual model to test how different lava properties and crust flexibilities could produce such a geological formation.

The findings revealed that lava alone cannot explain the pancake domes’ distinctive flat tops and steep sides. Instead, the lithosphere’s ability to flex under the weight of ultra-dense, highly viscous lava causes the molten rock to stop spreading and pile up. This flexure creates the dome’s characteristic shape and even reproduces the crustal bulges observed around some domes.

The lava involved is extraordinarily dense—more than twice the density of water—and incredibly viscous, over a trillion times thicker than ketchup. Such lava could take hundreds of thousands of Earth years to fully settle into these colossal pancake structures.

While this model is based on a single dome and not yet conclusive, upcoming NASA missions like VERITAS and DAVINCI will provide higher-resolution topographic data. This will allow scientists to test the theory across Venus’ thousands of volcanic features and deepen our understanding of the planet’s geological evolution.

Understanding Venus’ pancake volcanoes is more than a geological curiosity. It offers clues about how planetary surfaces evolve under extreme conditions and why Venus diverged so dramatically from Earth’s life-friendly path. The interplay of thick lava and a flexible crust paints a vivid picture of a world shaped by forces both familiar and alien.