The lava must have had a very low viscosity, possibly due to a carbonatite composition. At the volcano Ol Doinyo Lengai in Tanzania, natrocarbonatite lava erupts at around , not far above Venus's mean ambient temperature of . Analysis of cross-sectional profiles (using brightness data from Magellan synthetic aperture radar images) indicates that while Baltis Vallis does have levees, primarily in its first 1500 km, and intrachannel ridges, mainly in the segment 1500 to 3000 km from the source, the feature is primarily erosional, with a bottom surface 20-100 m below the surrounding plains at 90% of the sites studied. The average depths and widths of the channel are 46 ± 16 m and 2.2 ± 0.4 km, respectively.