CRUSTAL BENDING AT SALME-DORSA ON VENUS

The westward arcuate Salme Dorsa ridge belt studied here is a compress ional crustal zone. The ridge belt with adjoining structures is an evi dent indication of lateral stresses and adjoining crustal movements on Venus, and supports the idea of SE compression against the southern I shtar Terra foreland planitia. It has been compressed and pushed from the southeast against and over the foreland planitia, which has bent u nder the load and/or lateral stress, resulting in trough and bulge for mation in front of the ridge belt. This bending allows some estimates to be made of the thickness of the uppermost elastic lithosphere layer in this restricted area.