USING THIS LIST

• FINDING NAMES: Ignore words like "the", "Mt.", or "Lake." Mt. Hathor is under H, Cape Juno is under J.
• EACH ENTRY: the title links to a tour with local maps. Links inside an entry get you simple definitions.
• CAPITALS--Large or famous places are in CAPITALS.
• EAST AND WEST: on Venus, longitude is always measured east, from 0 right up to 359.
  

The O Mts: 3 S, 195 E

a high range of mountains south of Mt Maat, in eastern Aphrodite. Like Maat and the nearby Ozza Range, the O Mts are an ecological island with snow, alpine meadows, and high-altitude forests. A broad zone halfway up is prime gorilla habitat. Streams from Mt O water both the Rusalka Forest to the west and the arid valleys to the east and south.

Oakley Strait: 30 S, 309 E

Oakley is an impact crater at the western tip of Nepthys, in Dione. Just west of the crater is Oakley Strait, only a few km wide, separating Nepthys from the Cape Persephone on Themis. Narrow though it is, the strait's the only link between the Dzerassa and Lavinia Seas. Cape Oakley, the long curved tongue of Nepthys nearly touching Themis, is the main intercontinental flyway between Dione and Themis.

Obiemi Bay: 33 S, 280 E

A bay 350 km across, in far southeast Parga, just north of the isthmus dividing Parga fro m Themis. South of the bay is tortuous Cape Rigatona. To the north is Mt Mielikki. To the west is Lake Gertjon and the Obiemi Hills, a small corona with concentric ring-ridges, cupping several quite beautiful arcuate lakes. To the east, in the mouth of the bay, is the Isle of Angerona. The bay is coral country; its shores are open woods and meadows; the climate's warm and maritime.

Obilukha: 83 S, 15 E

The southernmost island in the Lada Archipelago--and the world. Lonely Obilukha is about 200 km across, but its shoreline's uncertain--south polar data is the worst on Venus. The climate's windy, cool, windy, rarely freezing even during the long nights, but never warming either. The land is low--stones and grass. Birds nest by the millions on Obilukha--the only inhabitants.

O'Connor Crater: 22 S, 150 E

A crater in central Aphrodite, the scar of an impact that happened to hit just at the edge of a basin over 1000 km across that's now one of the largest lakes on the planet. The result is that the western shore of Lake Onissya will have either a peninsula or a large island, with a secondary lake or marsh inside O'Connor Crater. The water level of Lake Onissya is likely to fluctuate and the shoreline is uncertain, so O'Connor's a toss-up between cape and island. Maybe it alternates, like Mont St. Michel.

Ogulbek: 10 N, 152 E

Ogulbek is a desert island 450 km long and 150 wide. Well, not totally desert--there's dune-grass and brush, but few trees, and the streams dry up by noon. Ogulbek has good bones--dramatic sea-cliffs, a varied coastline, hills that should draw rain--but it's cursed by a bad location, downwind of the Hassttse-baad Desert. Still, it shelters the reefs of Budevska Sound, as rich as the Red Sea, and whales calve in its warm shallow bays, like Scammon's Lagoon on Terra. Northeast, further offshore, lies Urutonga, larger and greener. To the east is a third isle nearly as big, but nameless (I have looked...), and then tiny Fand, which won a name because it's a steep volcanic cone standing out clearly on the radar scans. Height discrimination! It's an ugly thing.

Ohogetsu Hole: 26 S, 82 E

Ohogetsu, a sunken corona, forms a deep blue hole 150 km wide in the shallow Tahmina Sea near Cape Juno, between Narina and theEmilia Islands.

Cape Ojuz: 8 N, 38 E

Ojuz is a bony, crooked finger sticking south from Pavlova, in the Eistla Archipelago, near the Jaws of Aphrodite. The cape is a steep narrow ridge, wooded on the crest and west side, savanna on the east. It's the southwestern end of Pavlova. From its tip, the Farida Islands lead south to Gbadu, west to Kali, and east to Cape Isong. To the northeast is Pavlova Corona itself, a bull's eye of concentric ridges with low cliffs around lakes in its sagging center.

Cape O'Keeffe: 24 N, 228 E

O'Keeffe is a blunt cape 200 km long and wide, just north of Perchta Peninsula on Ulfrun (the "scorpion's tail" of Aphrodite). O'Keeffe is mostly open subtropical woods, with denser rainforest on the northwest slopes--beautiful, but nothing like O'Keefe's beloved New Mexico. Directly inland, nearly making the cape an island, is Lake O'Keeffe, 100 km wide and 200 long--small by Cytherean standards, but very deep. Offshore are the Pchilka Islands. Due south are the Pani Lakes; due north, Mansfield Patera.

Okhin-Tengri: 70 S-75, 35

an island in the southern Lada Archipelago, looking like a seasick sperm swimming north. Okhin-Tengri is one of the southernmost islands in the world. It's cool, foggy but not too rainy, with some redwoods on the coasts but brush and grasslands inland (though there isn't much inland, inland--most of Okhin-Tengri's a single thin ridge wandering through the Antarctic Sea).

Olapa Chasma: 40 S, 205 E

a rift valley in northwest Imdr. Its inner cliffs are the only place steep enough to break the dense jungle cover. The lowest part of the chasma has a narrow lake, so small (by chasmatic standards--a mere 180 km long and 20 wide) that it almost seems lost under the great trees. Olapa extends undersea, bending north. One ridge surfaces to form Libby and Nott before the system is buried by Isabella Crater. Or is it? I suspect it bends again, shaping both Isabella and Epona and Cape Stanton itself.

Olosa Hills: 20 N, 354 E

A range of wooded hills rising from the savannas of southern Eistla. To the south is Cape Enid, formed by an impact crater; north is an even larger crater-lake, De Lalande. To the east are the Jeanne Marie Canyons, a skein of spectacular canyons formed from lava flows from Mt Gula to the northeast. The region has a rather Mediterranean climate.

Olwen Bay, Cape, and Islands: 35-39 N, 70 E

Olwen Bay is named for a drowned corona offshore. A broad bight on the west coast of Tellus, its north shore is long Cape Welcome; its south is modest Cape Olwen, only 100 km long, with the tiny Olwen Is. trailing off into the Leda Sea. The region is all dense rainforest right down to the beach. South of Cape Olwen is a nameless region of north-south fjords, then Cape Christie.

Oma Peninsula: 43 S, 326 E

Southeast Hathor (southern Dione), is called the Oma Peninsula. About 500 km across, Oma is a strange region of curved, parallel ridges and canyons, like Appalachia or the Blue Mts in Australia, but steeper. The long cliff-walled canyons intersect now and then, but don't wind or branch like erosional canyons--more like the curving grooves of an old vinyl record. Jungle caps the cliffs, and waterfalls arc down to the fingerlakes below. The woods are Megazoic rainforest, some of the tallest on Venus. In the north the ridges run nearly to Mt Hathor; to the west is Morrigan Sound; south is the Lavinia Sea; east are the Hippolyta Islands.

Omeciuatl: 17 N, 118 E

One of the Gegute Islands in Niobe Ocean, off Thetis in central Aphrodite. The arcuate rim of a sunken corona, Omeciuatl is 220 km long but never over 20 wide. Omeciuatl is atypical --all the other Gegutes are tessera, mazes of deep, winding fjords and wooded canyons below grassy mesas, as steep and surreal as a Roadrunner cartoon. Omeciuatl does have some sea-cliffs on the eastern, inner side of its arc, but it's a gentle place overall--just a wooded ridge rising from the sea. Due west is sinuous Allatu; south, jagged Merit and Ptah. Southeast, hilly Bhumiya. Due east is huge Gegute itself, a fractal mass of sea-stacks, coral holes, dead-end canyons and snaking ridges.

Cape Omosi: 65 N, 305 E

A slender bulbous cape 400 km long, on the Mediterranean west coast of Ishtar. Omosi is the west end of the Ut Island Arc, sheltering a sound 1500 km long. It's also the border between the drier north and rainy south--unlike the mainland, which is oak savanna, Omosi's hills are covered in coast redwoods.

Omutnitsa Sound: 34 N, 300 E

A small triangular sea east of Beta, 600 km wide, between the Breksta Islands to the east, long Shishimora to the west, and Zirka to the south. Omutnitsa may be an offshore extension of Aikhylu Chasma on Beta's coast. The sound is dotted with islands; one's over 100 km wide. It's part of the Navka Archipelago, 6000 km long. The climate is like the wet side of Hawaii.

Cape Onatah: 49 N, 8 E

A chunky, east-thrusting peninsula off southern Ishtar, Cape Onatah shelters (surprise!) Lake Onatah to the north, a squarish, marshy lagoon 250 km across. This region is Venus's answer to the Everglades. Cape and lake are warm and rainy, with tropical hardwoods growing to great size and marching into the shallow water. To the east is huge Belisama Gulf, to the west, the Bahet Hills. Southwest is three-headed Cape Ariadne, the southern tip of Ishtar.

Onenhste Isthmus : 18 S, 215-225 E

This winding snake of land nearly links Chondi to southeast Aphrodite. Onenhste ("Oh nen stay") is 1500 km long but often only 50 wide--more Panama than Panama. The climate's mild but rather dry: mostly brush and grass, with some trees on Mt Malibran, the Onenhste Hills, and Mbokomu Corona at the western tip. Onenhste is one of several parallel spurs from Parga Chasma. To the north is Veleda Sound; to the south, the Gulf of Felicia.

LAKE ONISSYA: 25 S, 150 E

a shallow, marshy inland sea in central Aphrodite. Some 1000 km across, it's one of the largest lakes on the planet, comparable to Terra's Caspian. Its shores are marshy and the lake varies in size, though it's hard to predict what the climatic cycle will be. Around Lake Onissya is a wide grassy plain, drying to desert to the north and east. On its western shore is a peninsula formed by an impact crater, O'Connor (or maybe an island--it's hard to be sure); above, to the west, loom the dark pine-topped ridges of Artemis Corona. To the south are green hills and lesser lakes (though still large) around Naguchitsa Bay, on the Aino Sea. The name Lake Onissya comes from a second crater near the center of the lake, drowned too deep to form an island.

Sea of Ops: 67 N, 90 E

A small sea or gulf between Cape Aranyani in eastern Ishtar, and the Terra of Meskhent. The sea resembles the Aegean in climate, with many islands--grassy, rocky, with few trees. Though this is their northern limit, coral reefs are starting up in the shallows--the wide southern mouth of Ops lets in more warm water than the strait to the cool Arctic Sea.

Ortensia: 8 N, 156 E

Ortensia, a grassy island 110 km long, is the easternmost of the Urutonga Islands off north-central Aphrodite. Ortensia's mostly savanna, with rocky seacliffs; the hills are wooded, unlike most of the Urutongas. To the east is the lonely isle of Asherat, to the south, volcanic Fand, and to the west, Yolanda and huge Urutonga itself.

Oshumare Mts: 60 S, 83 E

The Oshumare Strip is in East Lada, between long Cape Zimcerla, Mt. Lanig, and Mugazo Gulf. The north-south Oshumare Mts are a long narrow ridge, sometimes splitting enough to look suspiciously like an incipient chasma. Oshumare's warm and thickly forested, with lakes and a curved sound flooding the trench in the south.

Otafuku Islands: 27 N, 50 E

An arc of steep volcanic cones forming islands off the south shore of Bell. The peaks are mantled in dense rainforest, though the highest have dwarf cloud-forest at their summits. Inland, through the Nyx Mountains, more volcanic cones are scattered. The largest and most spectacular, though, is 200 km northwest: Mt. Tepev.

OTYGEN: 58 S, 33 E

a major island in the central Lada Archipelago. The north half is Otygen Corona, a classic round pillow 400 km across. It's warm, rainy, and thickly forested. South of the narrows is Cocomama, a low, irregular squiggle over 500 km across. Its a quilt of woods and meadows, with a mild, marine climate--sunny days, rainy nights. But what tourists come to see are the Cocomama Tessera--regular mesas and canyons laid out in a grid, with forest on top and in the canyons, and red rock between. It's like an ancient metropolis that fossilized and was overgrown by jungle--but a city the size of a small nation.

OVDA: 5 S, 95 E

a high, rugged oval region in western Aphrodite. Unlike the simple Lakshmi Plateau, neatly outlined in high ranges, Ovda is the jaggedest highland on Venus--a complex tangle of ridges and peaks rising to 4 and even 5 km, cut by deep rifts, especially in the south, by the lake-filled Le Shen Valley and Kwanja Chasma. An equally complex climatic patchwork, Ovda has alpine forests and meadows in its high northern and eastern ranges, Salika and Zulma, and denser woods and marshes around the Ovda Lakes; but the south, where the heights block rain, has grassland and even pocket deserts. Deep lakes in the chasmas create their own microclimates. The high peaks are snowcapped, for Ovda is equatorial, and the rings cool this zone more than the torrid zones north and south of it.

Ovda Fluctus: 5 S, 95 E

A high-altitude lake-basin in northern Ovda, (western Aphrodite). The Fluctus Valley is an old lava flow, as the name implies; today, the basin holds two large lakes. The northern, Lake Fluctus, 250 E km long, covers the lava flow itself and is dammed by a dike at the east end; the southern, Lake Ovda, fills a nearby basalt basin--essentially, a congealed lava lake. These are the largest high-altitude lakes on Venus. The snowcapped Salika Range north of the valley rises to 4000 meters, and the Zulma Mountains to the southeast reach nearly 5000. The Fluctus Valley has dense woods, meadows and marshes around the lakes; with the alpine flora of the surrounding mountains, it's an ecological island ringed by semi-arid lowlands.

Oya Islands: 18 N, 155 E

A lonely island chain in the Niobe Ocean, north of the Urutonga Islands, which are about the only flyway reaching the Oyas. The main island is a wedge 120 km long, comparable to Hawaii. To the north lie two Oahu-sized isles and several reefs, while a long islet-chain leads south 600 km to the Urutongas. The Oyas have a mild marine climate and are quite fertile. In a few thousand years they'll likely evolve a rich web of endemic species.

OZZA MTS: 0 N, 200 E

a high range of mountains near Mt Maat, nearly on the equator. Half a dozen ridge and chasm zones thousands of miles long converge on the Ozzas. Generally surrounded by deserts, the Ozzas are an ecological island with high-altitude forests. Streams from the Ozzas feed lakes in the surrounding desert basins.

OZZA SOUND: 15 N, to -10 S, 220 E

Another name for Zewana Sound (see).

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