英语听力：自然百科 金星和水星旅行指南 Venus and Mercury-14

 On earth, Hawaii has some of the most spectacular shield volcanoes that are very similar with the volcanoes we see on Venus. The huge gently sloped volcanoes of Hawaii may be impressive. On Venus there are at least 150 ranging from this size to ten times larger. But the observant visitor may notice that Venus is missing something.

 

The whole impact crater¹ situation on Venus is really very puzzling. With the Magellen images, we see / really a small number/ of impact craters². And such a small number about a thousand. Because we know the rate at which impactors commit it and we can actually date the surface too. Some are between 300 million and 1 billion years old. 

 

Some time/ in the recent geological past, it seems the entire surface of Venus was remodeled. And suddenly (the exploding sound). The surface, geology of Venus is evener than the earth, basically because a lack of water. No water is now lubricating that crust. So you don't get plate tectonics. Instead  it seems that happened. It's that forces inside the planet trying to move things around, but it can't. It's locked. And then it explodes: very emissive, globally explosive episodes that happen about every half billion to / billion years. So you would not now want to be on Venus when that happens. Because once something gives way, the whole planet, it might just basically explode/ in a sense and turn/ itself over in a very short matter of time, in geological terms.

 

Oh, man, look at this. We can see a river of lava³ beneath the surface. Imagine that this lava is on Venus, probably something very much like this occurs either today or the recent past. No one can say for sure if we will ever see an eruption⁴ like this on Venus. No one has ever been able to get this close.

1 crater   

n.火山口，弹坑

参考例句：

• With a telescope you can see the huge crater of Ve-suvius.用望远镜你能看到巨大的维苏威火山口。
• They came to the lip of a dead crater.他们来到了一个死火山口。

2 craters   

n.火山口( crater的名词复数 )；弹坑等

参考例句：

• Small meteorites have left impact craters all over the planet's surface. 这个行星的表面布满了小块陨石留下的撞击坑。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The battlefield was full of craters made by exploding shells. 战场上布满弹坑。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

3 lava   

n.熔岩，火山岩

参考例句：

• The lava flowed down the sides of the volcano.熔岩沿火山坡面涌流而下。
• His anger spilled out like lava.他的愤怒像火山爆发似的迸发出来。

4 eruption   

n.火山爆发；（战争等）爆发；（疾病等）发作

参考例句：

• The temple was destroyed in the violent eruption of 1470 BC.庙宇在公元前1470年猛烈的火山爆发中摧毁了。
• The eruption of a volcano is spontaneous.火山的爆发是自发的。