Hypothesis Perspectives: Might active volcanisms today contribute to the presence of phosphine in Venus's atmosphere?

TL;DR

This paper proposes that active volcanism on Venus could produce phosphine through abiotic processes, offering an alternative explanation to biological sources for the phosphine detected in its atmosphere.

Contribution

It introduces a novel abiotic geological mechanism linking Venusian volcanism to phosphine presence, supported by order of magnitude calculations and observational consistency.

Findings

Active volcanism could produce phosphides sufficient for phosphine formation.

Venus's current volcanism rate aligns with the requirements for phosphine production.

The hypothesis is consistent with spacecraft observations and laboratory data.

Abstract

We propose an abiotic geological mechanism that accounts for the abundance of phosphine detected by Greaves et al., 2020. We hypothesize that trace amounts of phosphides formed in the mantle would be brought to the surface by volcanism, and then subsequently ejected into the atmosphere, where they could react with water or sulfuric acid to form phosphine. To investigate the plausibility of this hypothesis, we carry out an order of magnitude calculation. We suggest that active volcanism today could produce a rate comparable to that required to produce the phosphide-source of the phosphine. Our hypothesis requires that Venus be currently experiencing a high rate of basaltic volcanism, one that is consistent with spacecraft observations and laboratory experiments.