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Massive ice avalanches on Iapetus mobilized by friction reduction during flash heating

Nature Geoscience volume 5, pages 574–578 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Long-runout landslides are debris flows or avalanches that travel much farther than expected. They apparently exhibit friction coefficients much lower than either the static or sliding values that are generally accepted for geologic materials. Many friction-reduction mechanisms have been proposed for such landslides observed on Earth and Mars. Here we analyse images from the Cassini mission and report numerous long-runout landslides on Iapetus, an icy satellite of exceptional topographic relief. Its extremely cold, airless surface provides an excellent laboratory for studying long-runout landslides, as influence by trapped atmosphere or groundwater—two proposed friction-reduction mechanisms—is negligible. We use the ratio of drop height to runout length as an approximation for the friction coefficient of landslide material. We find that on Iapetus this ratio falls between 0.1 and 0.3, but does not decrease with increasing length as seen on Earth and Mars. We show that this lack of dependence is consistent with localized frictional heating in ice rubble such that sliding surfaces are slippery. Friction along tectonic faults on icy bodies may be similarly reduced.

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Figure 1: Example blocky landslides on Iapetus.
Figure 2: Example lobate landslides on Iapetus.
Figure 3: Landslide modification of Iapetus’s equatorial ridge.
Figure 4: Stereo-derived DEMs of Iapetus’s surface.
Figure 5: Iapetus landslide mobilities in comparison.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the NASA Planetary Geology and Geophysics Program (W.B.M.) and Cassini Data Analysis Program (J.M.M. and P.M.S.) and by a NESS Fellowship to K.N.S. We sincerely thank A. Lucas for comments that substantially improved this paper, and dedicate this work to the memory of R. Greeley.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences and McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences, Washington University in St Louis, 1 Brookings Drive, St Louis, Missouri 63130-4862, USA

    Kelsi N. Singer & William B. McKinnon

  2. Lunar and Planetary Institute, Houston, Texas 77058, USA

    Paul M. Schenk

  3. NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, California 94035, USA

    Jeffery M. Moore

Authors
  1. Kelsi N. Singer
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  2. William B. McKinnon
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Contributions

K.N.S. collected the landslide data and along with W.B.M. compiled the literature data and wrote the paper. P.M.S. created and supplied the topography data used here and along with J.M.M. contributed to discussion of the data and revisions to the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Kelsi N. Singer.

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Singer, K., McKinnon, W., Schenk, P. et al. Massive ice avalanches on Iapetus mobilized by friction reduction during flash heating. Nature Geosci 5, 574–578 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1526

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