No water, no plate tectonics: convective heat transfer and the planetary surfaces of Venus and Earth

We consider the influence of water on the near-surface rheology of Venusian and terrestrial rocks and hence the way their heat transfer processes have been able to shape their planetary surfaces. We suggest that Earth is now unique in having plate-like surface movements at velocities characteristic of ‘deep’ material in self-regulating convective states (～ few cm/year) only because liquid water is there available to facilitate mechanical failure of its lithosphere (sic). The relative absence of free water on Venus is thought to more than compensate for the effect of higher temperatures on the deformability of its surface rocks and is interpreted as the reason for an absence of Earth-like platetectonics and the distinctive distributions of volcanism and seismicity accompanying such a process for > 109 years. The characteristics of Venusian volcanism in its post plate-tectonic era are now expected to be similar to Earth's intraplate (‘hotspot’) volcanism.