New insights on the runout of large landslides in the Valles-Marineris canyons, Mars

E Lajeunesse (1) , C Quantin (2) , P Allemand , C Delacourt (3)

1 IPGP - Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris
2 GEOPS - Géosciences Paris Sud
3 LDO - Domaines Océaniques

[1] Analogy with lab-scale dry granular flow experiments demonstrates that runouts and deposits heights of Valles-Marineris (VM) landslides can be scaled on a curve varying primarily with the initial aspect ratio of the mobilized rock mass (before slope failure). This results suggests both that any interstitial fluid played a negligible part in the VM landslides dynamics and that mobility is not an appropriate tool to characterize their dynamics.

Domains: Sciences of the Universe [physics]

E Lajeunesse, C Quantin, P Allemand, C Delacourt. New insights on the runout of large landslides in the Valles-Marineris canyons, Mars. Geophysical Research Letters, 2006, 33 (4), ⟨10.1029/2005GL025168⟩. ⟨insu-01285698⟩