(Phys.org)—A trio of planetary scientists has created a physical model of part of the surface of Venus and in so doing may have solved the mystery of tectonics on Venus. In their paper published in the journal Nature Geoscience, Ann Davaille, Suzanne Smrekar and Steve Tomlinson with Université Paris-Sud, the Jet Propulsion Lab at Caltech and the University of California, describe their model and what they believe it revealed.