Mass Wasting

Literature Review

Imagine rocks and soil tumbling downhill – that's mass wasting, driven by gravity. It's a big
player in shaping the landscape, not just on land but also underground and even underwater.
It's like a giant sculpting tool that continuously reshapes the planet's surface. Scientists have
even found evidence of this happening on other worlds. Studying landslides on Earth isn't the
perfect way to understand how gravity alone affects mass wasting. That's because Earth has
other things going on, like wind, rain, and earthquakes that can also play a role. However,
gravity is still the main thing that gets rocks and dirt moving downhill. Even though landslides
on other planets look kind of similar to Earth's, they aren't exactly the same, which makes
scientists think there might be a similar force (probably gravity) causing them, even if it's
working with different conditions. There's less chance of things like earthquakes happening on
the Moon and Ceres. This helps isolate the effect of gravity even more. Since they're smaller
than Earth, we can get much better pictures of their surfaces from space. This allows scientists
to see the details of mass wasting events on these objects. By studying landslides on the Moon
and Ceres, scientists can learn more about these objects, including how to drive rovers safely
and where to find water ice. This information can help space agencies plan future missions
(Sam, 2022).Moon avalanches, unlike Earth's, only involve dry, loose material moving downhill.
This makes them a good example of how landslides work without any water or air getting in the
way. Scientists used to think moon landslides mostly happened on crater slopes and involved
some fine dust. In recent years, better space pictures have confirmed this and even helped us
understand how much moon dust gets lost to space over time. There's still a lot to learn
though, like exactly where all these landslides are and how old they are. Scientists recently
made a big step in studying moon landslides by creating a giant catalog of just one type: rock
falls. This catalog showed a couple of interesting things. First, it seems most rock falls are
caused by space rocks hitting the moon. Second, they might also be a clue for where there have
been recent moonquakes. The oldest parts of the moon's surface seem to have fewer rock falls.
Ceres is like a detective case for scientists studying landslides. Unlike the Moon, Ceres is more
active. It has icy volcanoes, salty water features, and even hidden pockets of an ancient ocean.
In Ceres, we can study landslides happening in an icy environment, which is something we can't
do on the Moon. Scientist have also found hills and bumps that might have formed from
ancient ice volcanoes erupting, melting, and then refreezing. Plus, they've spotted actual ice on
the surface. All this evidence suggests Ceres might have a hidden network of icy volcanoes,
unlike anything we've seen before.

A big earthquake in Kashmir in 2005 caused a lot of landslides (mass movements) on one side of
the fault line is discussed by (Basharat, 2014) . Scientists studied these landslides pictures using
remote sensing data and found over 2,400 of them. It was observed that most mass
movements occurred in the hanging wall block of the fault. This finding was supported by
patterns and statistical data showing that mass movements were more widespread in the
hanging wall block compared to the foot wall sections of the Muzaffarabad Fault rupture.
Landslides are very common in the Himalayas because of the way the mountains formed. The
Himalayas are young mountains with steep slopes, and the ground itself is constantly moving
due to earthquakes. On top of that, heavy monsoon rains loosen the soil even more. This all
makes landslides a big problem in the region. Kashmir’s earthquake triggered a rock fall in
Langarpura, located 12km southeast of Muzaffarabad. This area is on the southwestern side of
the Himalayas and sits on the footwall block of the Muzaffarabad Fault. Before the earthquake,
the Jhelum River had already eroded the slope here. The earthquake happened along a fault
where a lower layer of rock (from the hanging wall block) was thrust on top of a higher layer
(on the footwall block). The rock fall debris from Langarpura even covered up most of the fault
line in this area. At the bottom of the Langarpura rock fall, there were layers of relatively young
(Quaternary period) river sediments and even older landslide deposits. This suggests the area
has a history of landslides. The rock fall debris partially buried a section of the Muzaffarabad
Fault's shear zone on the northeastern side. Earthquakes cause landslides (mass movements) in
two ways along faults. First, the shaking itself can trigger landslides. Second, earthquakes can
cause the ground to coseismic uplift on one side of the fault. This steeper slope creates more
landslides on that side compared to the footwall side. All the above circumstances on
Muzaffarabad Fault contributed to the mass movements.

Reference:

Basharat, M. R. (2014). Large Scale Mass Movements Triggered by the Kashmir. Journal of Mountain
Science, 19-30.

Sam, L. a. (2022). A Remote Sensing Perspective on Mass Wasting in Contrasting Planetary

Environments: Cases of the Moon and Ceres. Remote Sensing, 4(1049).