Matt Drudge points here on to a Stanford press-release. That's Michelle DiBenedetto and Zhipeng Qin, led by Jenny Suckale: "Crystal aggregates record the pre-eruptive flow field in the volcanic conduit at Kīlauea, Hawaii".
Claim here: they can track flow-patterns in the magma from its olivine, when said olivine comes to the surface and cools into crystals. The ambient rock cools so fast that the crystals don't grow. They become, in that "scoria", fossils.
I don't know that the process will work like this on Venus, which also has olivine. Crystals might grow on that superheated surface.
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