The Great Dyke of Atla Regio (GDAR) is traced for ~3700 km on Venus, as a surface graben (narrow trough) interpreted to overlie a continuous laterally-emplaced underlying mafic dyke (vertical magma-filled crack). The GDAR belongs to a giant radiating dyke swarm associated with Ozza Mons (volcano), Atla Regio plume, and was fed from a magma reservoir ~600 km south of the Ozza Mons centre. A 50-degree counter-clockwise swing of the GDAR at 1200 km from the centre is consistent with a 1200 km radius for the underlying Ozza Mons plume head, and a stress link to the 10,000 km long Parga Chasmata rift system. Our discovery of the GDAR, should spur the search for additional long continuous single dykes on Venus (and Earth), with implications for estimating plume head size, locating buffered magma reservoirs, mapping regional stress variation at a geological instant, and revealing relative ages (through cross-cutting relationships) over regional-scale distances.

The Chuanlinggou Formation in the northern North China preserves the world's earliest multicellular eukaryote microfossils. Here we present a high‐precision zircon U–Pb CA–ID–TIMS age of 1,641.7 ± 1.2 Ma for a tuff layer within the black shales of the Chuanlinggou Formation. The new age is similar to those obtained for black shales from the Cuizhuang Formation in the southern North China, and the Barney Creek and Fraynes formations in the North Australia, indicating synchronous deposition of large volumes of black shales across both the North China and North Australia at ca. 1640 Ma. Global correlations and analysis of the spatial distribution of ca. 1640 Ma black shales and large igneous provinces (LIPs) and associated magmatic rocks in paleogeographic reconstruction reveal a spatiotemporal link between the ca. 1640 Ma LIPs and black shales. The widely distributed ca. 1640 Ma LIPs and black shales in Columbia supercontinent can provide a natural marker for the Statherian/Calymmian boundary at 1,640 Ma.

Several missions to Venus have recently been selected for launch, opening a new era for the exploration of the planet. A key question these missions seek to address is whether Venus is geologically active today. Detecting active volcanism on Venus would contribute to a better understanding of volcanic and atmospheric processes on Earth. The Analogs for VENus' GEologically Recent Surfaces (AVENGERS) initiative provides a comparative framework for the identification and analysis of terrestrial analog sites relevant to recent and possibly ongoing volcanic activity on Venus. Although this review focuses on terrestrial analogs for Venus exploration, the AVENGERS initiative also includes investigations that use Venus and Earth as analogs to better understand the evolution of terrestrial exoplanets. In addition, the AVENGERS initiative facilitates international collaboration by connecting Venus mission teams with the broader planetary and exoplanetary science communities. This review describes the scientific context of AVENGERS, details the selection criteria for terrestrial analog sites, and summarizes a set of suitable locations. Methodological approaches in analog studies that support the interpretation of Venus observations are also discussed.