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Caldera

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Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms

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Definition

These are large, quasi-circular, volcanic depressions with diameters considerably larger than any included vent, with diameters greater than 1 km on Earth and greater than 10 km for planetary calderas (Mouginis-Mark and Rowland 2001). These landforms result from paroxysmal explosions and/or gravitational collapse into an evacuated or partially drained near-surface magma storage complex or magma chamber. Smaller ones (i.e., on Earth, those that have diameters less than 1 km) are classified as pit craters (Williams and McBirney 1979; Walker 1988; Mouginis-Mark and Rowland 2001). Calderas on Venus are defined to be “circular to elongate depressions characterized mainly by concentric pattern of enveloping fractures and other geologic characteristics indicative of a depression” (Head et al. 1992; Crumpler et al. 1997), similar to calderas as defined on Earth.

Synonyms

Cauldron; Patera

Description

These are quasi-circular volcanic depressions bounded by concentric ring faults.

Morphometry...

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Lunar and Planetary Institute, USRA, Houston, TX, USA

    Gerald A. Galgana

Authors
  1. Gerald A. Galgana
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Correspondence to Gerald A. Galgana .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. NASA Ames Research Center/NPP, Moffett Field, CA, USA

    Henrik Hargitai

  2. Konkoly Thege Miklos Astronomical Institute, Research Centre for Astronomy and Earth Sciences, Budapest, Hungary

    Ákos Kereszturi

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Galgana, G.A. (2015). Caldera. In: Hargitai, H., Kereszturi, Á. (eds) Encyclopedia of Planetary Landforms. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-3134-3_29

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