NASA captures landslip on Mars

This is an image of a relatively fresh landslip on Mars that shows boulder-covered landslip along a canyon wall.

A relatively fresh one that shows boulder-covered landslip along a canyon wall.

NASA has released an image of a relatively fresh landslip on Mars that shows boulder-covered landslip along a canyon wall.

Landslips occur when steep slopes fall, sending a mass of soil and rock to flow downhill, leaving behind a scarp at the top of the slope, the researchers said.

The mass of material comes to rest when it reaches shallower slopes, forming a lobe of material that ends in a well-defined edge called a toe.

Striking feature

The striking feature of the image, acquired by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) on March 19, 2014, is a boulder-covered landslip along a canyon wall.

The landslip is relatively fresh, as many individual boulders still stand out above the main deposit, researchers said.

Several small impact craters

Additionally, while several small impact craters are visible in the landslip lobe, they are smaller in size and fewer in number than those on the surrounding valley floor. The scarp itself also looks fresh compared to the rest of the cliff — it too has boulders, and more varied topography than the adjacent dusty terrain.

Just to the north of the landslip scarp is a similarly-shaped scar on the cliff-side. However, there is no landslip material on the valley floor below it.

The older landslip deposit has either been removed or buried, a further indicator of the relative youth of the bouldery landslip.