Large, lobate landslide in Iapetus' Engelier basin

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Large, lobate landslide in Iapetus' Engelier basin

Global view of Iapetus’ bright, trailing hemisphere and a close up of a large, lobate type landslide in the Engelier basin (~250 m/px). The landslide extends up to 80 km away from the 10 km high Engelier rimwall. There are several landslides along the walls of Engelier, likely accounting for the crenulated appearance of the basin (rather than a perfectly circular rim). The landslide shown exhibits multiple, overlapping lobes, and there is a hint of longitudinal furrows (sets of ridges parallel to the lateral margins).

NASA / JPL / SSI

Zoomed high res: Cassini Product ID N1568145272

Landslides have also modified Iapetus' ridge:

NASA / JPL / SSI / annotated by Kelsi Singer

Landslide modification of Iapetus' ridge

Iapetus' unique and ancient equatorial ridge shows diverse morphologies, sometimes flat-topped, other times sharp and steep-sided, and in some places there are individual mountainous peaks. This portion of the ridge (Toledo Montes) shows where landslides have modified the flat-topped ridge (at ~225 m/px). Arrows indicate landslide margins and dotted lines show alcoves that are possibly sites of more ancient landslides. No matter how the ridge originally formed (a debated topic), its appearance has been considerably altered by a long history of mass wasting.

Original image data dated on or about December 31, 2004