face blanketed the entire planet with suspended sediment much like the Mar-
tian dust storms of today (Fig. 11). Huge lightning bolts flashed across the sky.
The thunder was earth-shattering as one gigantic shock wave after another
reverberated throughout the land. Volcanoes erupted in one giant outburst
after another. The sky lit up from the pyrotechnics created by the white-hot
sparks of ash and the glow of constantly flowing red-hot lava. The restless
Earth was rent apart as massive quakes cracked open the thin crust. Huge
batches of magma flowed through the fissures and flooded the surface with
voluminous amounts of lava, forming flat, featureless basalt plains.
The intense volcanism lofted millions of tons of volcanic debris into the
atmosphere, where it remained suspended for long periods. Ash and dust parti-
cles scattered sunlight and gave the sky an eerie red glow like that on Mars fol-
lowing an intense dust storm. The dust also cooled Earth and provided
particulate matter, upon which water vapor could coalesce.When temperatures
in the upper atmospheric lowered, water vapor condensed into clouds. The
clouds were so thick and heavy they almost completely blocked out the Sun.As
a result, the surface was in near darkness, dropping temperatures even further.
As the atmosphere continued to cool, huge raindrops fell from the sky,
and Earth received deluge after deluge. Raging floods cascaded down steep
Figure 10A radar image
collection of Venus
obtained by the Magellan
mission in 1994.
(Photo courtesy NASA)PLANET EARTH