tectonic plates

[dinsdale]

do we know if other planets have tectonic plates? And if do they cause "marsquakes" and "Venusquakes"?

[jake-the-peg]

I don't know about Venus, we actually know very little about it because of the very hostile atmosphere.

Mars used to be tectonically active, it has the largest known volcano (extinct) in the solar system.

It seems as if Mars is not now significantly active tectonically. It is smaller than the Earth and so this seems to have stopped now.

Consequently (or at least probably) this has shut down the long term carbon cycle on the planet reducing it's atmosphere and greenhouse effect which means that the liquid water that was once there is now locked up in ice.

Doubtlessly there are a few Mars quakes though - interestingly enough you get moon-quakes even though that is geologically rather dead.They are though to be due to tidal forces with the Earth but they go on for hours.