Inferring the high velocity of landslides in Valles Marineris on Mars from morphological analysis

Blasio, Fabio Vittorio De; Bastiano, Camilla Di; Bozzano, Francesca

doi:10.1186/s40623-015-0369-x

Cited by 41 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 62 publications

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“…Different types of mass wasting processes have been observed on several planetary and minor bodies of the solar System, as reported in the abundant literature on this topic (Bart, 2007;Brunetti, Xiao, Komatsu, Peruccacci, & Guzzetti, 2015;Buczkowski et al, 2016;De Blasio et al 2011;Krohn et al, 2014;Massironi et al, 2012;Mazzanti, De Blasio, Di Bastiano, & Bozzano, 2016;Quantin, Allemand, & Delacourt, 2004;Waltham, Pickering, & Bray, 2008;Williams et al, 2013;Xiao & Komatsu, 2013)). On the Moon, first studies about mass movements were published by Pike (1971) using images from the Apollo 10 Mission.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Recognition of landslides in lunar impact craters

Scaioni

Yordanov

Brunetti

et al. 2017

European Journal of Remote Sensing

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Landslides have been observed on several planets and minor bodies of the solar System, including the Moon. Notwithstanding different types of slope failures have been studied on the Moon, a detailed lunar landslide inventory is still pending. Undoubtedly, such will be in a benefit for future geological and morphological studies, as well in hazard, risk and suscept- ibility assessments. A preliminary survey of lunar landslides in impact craters has been done using visual inspection on images and digital elevation model (DEM) (Brunetti et al. 2015) but this method suffers from subjective interpretation. A new methodology based on polynomial interpolation of crater cross-sections extracted from global lunar DEMs is presented in this paper. Because of their properties, Chebyshev polynomials were already exploited for para- metric classification of different crater morphologies (Mahanti et al., 2014). Here, their use has been extended to the discrimination of slumps in simple impact craters. Two criteria for recognition have provided the best results: one based on fixing an empirical absolute thresholding and a second based on statistical adaptive thresholding. The application of both criteria to a data set made up of 204 lunar craters’ cross-sections has demonstrated that the former criterion provides the best recognition

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Recognition of landslides in lunar impact craters

Scaioni

Yordanov

Brunetti

et al. 2017

European Journal of Remote Sensing

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“…In addition to the agreement between observed slides and our simulations, the fact that our smallest simulated slides have mobility consistent with expectations from laboratory measurements indicates that our simulations include the relevant physical mechanisms that control the mobility of long‐runout slides. Another test of these models comes from estimates of Martian slide velocities that indicate long‐runout slides traveled at speeds exceeding 100 m/s (Mazzanti et al, ). Our largest simulated slides reached a peak velocity of 125 m/s (when the slide transition to a flat ground contour), broadly consistent with the finding of Mazzanti et al ().…”

Section: Implications For Long‐runout Mechanismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Drop Height and Volume Control the Mobility of Long‐Runout Landslides on the Earth and Mars

Johnson

Campbell

2017

Geophysical Research Letters

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Long-runout landslides are landslides with volumes of 10 5 m 3 or more, which move much farther from their source than expected. The observation that Martian landslides are generally less mobile than terrestrial landslides offers important evidence regarding the mechanism responsible for the high mobility of long-runout landslides. Here we simulate landslides as granular flow using a soft-particle discrete element model. We show that while surface gravity plays a negligible role, observed differences in fall height naturally reproduce the observed differences in mobility of Martian and terrestrial landslides. We also demonstrate that landslides on Iapetus may fit this trend. Our simulations do not include any fluid and indicate that a mechanism similar to acoustic fluidization can explain the high mobility of long-runout landslides. This implies that long-runout landslides on Mars should not be considered as evidence for ice, saturated clays, or liquid water.

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“…(), and Mazzanti et al. (). Out of the 20 terrestrial landslides plotted with grooves, however, 17 of them ran out on a glacier or ice sheet.…”

Section: Ejecta Comparison With Landslidesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…16). Numerous Martian landslides in Valles Marineris exhibit grooves, but it remains uncertain whether these landslides ran out onto ice sheets as proposed by De Blasio (2011Blasio ( , 2014, Gourronc et al (2014), and Mazzanti et al (2016). Out of the 20 terrestrial landslides plotted with grooves, however, 17 of them ran out on a glacier or ice sheet.…”

Section: Vertical Exaggeration 29xmentioning

confidence: 99%

Testing landslide and atmospheric‐effects models for the formation of double‐layered ejecta craters on Mars

Weiss

Head

2017

Meteorit & Planetary Scien

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Double‐layered ejecta (DLE) craters are distinctive among the variety of crater morphologies observed on Mars, but the mechanism by which they form remains under debate. We assess two ejecta emplacement mechanisms: (1) atmospheric effects from ejecta curtain‐induced vortices or a base surge and (2) ballistic emplacement followed by a landslide of ejecta assisted by either surface‐ or pore‐ice. We conduct a morphological analysis of the ejecta facies for three DLE craters which impacted into irregular pre‐existing topography. We find that the unique topographic environments affected the formation of grooves and the inner facies, and thus appear to be inconsistent with an atmospheric‐effects origin but are supportive of the landslide hypothesis. We distinguish between the two landslide models (lubrication by either surface‐ or pore‐ice) by assessing relationships between DLE crater ejecta and morphologic features indicative of buried ice deposits, including sublimation pits, ring‐mold craters, expanded secondary craters, and excess ejecta craters. The association of DLE craters with these features suggests that surface ice was present at the time of the impacts that formed the DLE craters. We also compare the Froude numbers of DLE crater ejecta to landslides, and find that the ejecta of DLE craters are kinematically and frictionally similar to terrestrial landslides that overran glaciers. This suggests that the grooves on DLE craters may plausibly form through the same shear/splitting mechanism as the landslides. In summary, our analysis supports the hypothesis that DLE craters form through meteoroid impacts into decameters‐thick surface ice deposits (emplaced during periods of higher obliquity) followed by ejecta sliding on the ice.

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Inferring the high velocity of landslides in Valles Marineris on Mars from morphological analysis

Cited by 41 publications

References 62 publications

Recognition of landslides in lunar impact craters

Recognition of landslides in lunar impact craters

Drop Height and Volume Control the Mobility of Long‐Runout Landslides on the Earth and Mars

Testing landslide and atmospheric‐effects models for the formation of double‐layered ejecta craters on Mars

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