Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Sep 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009dps....41.3801s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, DPS meeting #41, #38.01
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
A new survey of Cassini images of Iapetus reveals mass wasting as a widespread process in crater and equatorial ridge modification. Fifty candidate mass movement features were identified in images with 750 m/pixel or better resolution on both the dark and bright hemispheres. Mass wasting landforms were classified into four types: (1) alcoves and associated landslides with lobate margins, sometimes with multiple lobes; (2) alcoves and associated massive, hummocky landslides with steeper frontal margins than type 1; (3) avalanche scars with no obviously visible landslide flows; and (4) crater wall slumping. Intracrater landslides are found in craters that range in diameter from 450 km down to 15 km. Landslide lengths range from 80 km (some of the longest in the Solar System) to 5 km, with the longest runouts observed at large basin walls (e.g., Engeleir) or the ridge. Iapetus has larger landslides that exhibit more diverse morphologies than those on Callisto, but several of the smallest iapetian landslides are Callisto-like. Stereo topographic data was used to determine the landslide drop height. Most intracrater landslides follow a general trend of decreasing H/L (drop height to runout length ratio, an approximation for the coefficient of friction) with increasing length. This trend is similar to dry rock avalanches on Earth and landslides in Valles Marineris on Mars, with Iapetus values located between those for the two planets. In contrast, landslides from the ridge and basin walls have some of the highest drop heights seen for landslides in the solar system ( 10 km in some cases). Many examples of feature types 1 and 3 are seen on the ridge in the higher resolution images between 135° and 185° W longitude, where the ridge is tall and steep sided, suggesting mass wasting is an important mechanism of ridge loss. We thank NASA PGG.
McKinnon William B.
Moore Jeffery M.
Schenk Paul M.
Singer Kelsi
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