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PIA03913: Promethei Terra
This landslide along a portion of a ridge in Promethei Terra was imaged by NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft. Landslides have very characteristic morphologies on Earth, which they also display on Mars.
 Target Name:  Mars
 Is a satellite of:  Sol (our sun)
 Mission:  2001 Mars Odyssey 
 Spacecraft:  2001 Mars Odyssey
 Instrument:  THEMIS 
 Product Size:  1175 x 3061 pixels (w x h) 
 Produced By:  Arizona State University 
 Producer ID:  20020805A  
 Full-Res TIFF:  PIA03913.tif (1.437 MB)
 Full-Res JPEG:  PIA03913.jpg (343 kB)  

Click on the image above to download a moderately sized image in JPEG format (possibly reduced in size from original)

Original Caption Released with Image:


(Released 5 August 2002)
This image shows a landslide along a portion of a ridge in Promethei Terra. Landslides have very characteristic morphologies on Earth, which they also display on Mars. These morphologies include a distinctive escarpment at the uppermost part of the landslide--called a head scarp (seen at the bottom of this image), a down-dropped block of material below that escarpment that dropped almost vertically, and a deposit of debris that moved away from the escarpment at high speed. In this example, the wall rock displayed in the upper part of the cliff contains spurs and chutes created by differing amounts of erosion. The actual landslide deposit shows transverse ribs which are probably compressional features created upon emplacement of the landslide material. This image also contains a smoother plains member located in the upper part of the image and a somewhat rougher less cratered unit located below the smoother plains. This rougher unit is actually a debris apron surrounding the ridge (see context image). There are also what appear to be older more degraded landslide scars visible along the eastern portion of this ridge.
Image Credit:
NASA/JPL/Arizona State University

Image Addition Date:
2002-08-05