A good basic description of surface planetary research provided by Brown University

A good basic description of surface planetary research is provided by Brown University's web site. On it they discuss impact craters, volcanism, plate techtonics and how a study of various planets has helped to understand the processes involved across planets. They also discuss remote sensing techniques and how they apply mass spectroscopy to meteorites and other geologic samples. One interesting thing I read about Venus is it is a good model for understanding what will happen to our planet if we lose our atmosphere and as a way to understand the "greenhouse effect" because Venus' atmosphere is largely carbon dioxide with clouds of sulfuric acid droplets. I was reading the Roger Tory Peterson Field Guide to the Stars and Planets written by Donald H. Menzel and Jay M. Pasachoff.