Venus is scarred by numerous impact craters distrubuted randomly over its surface. The exception occurs when large meteorites shatter just before impact, creating crater clusters . Volcanoes and volcanic features are even more numerous. Hugh lava flows, extending for hundreds of kilometers, have flooded the lowlands creating vast plains. More than 100,000 small shield volcanoes dot the surface along with hundreds of large volcanos.
Terrestrial calderas are usually only several kilometers in diameter.
Several features unique to Venus include coronae and arachnoids. Coronae are large circular to oval features, encircled with cliffs and are hundreds of kilometers across. They are thought to be the surface expression of mantle upwelling. Archnoids are circular to elongated features similar to coronae. They may have been caused by molten rock seeping into surface fractures and producing systems of radiating dikes and fractures.