the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Long Runout Landslides with Associated Longitudinal Ridges in Iceland as Analogues of Martian Landforms
Giulia Magnarini
Anya Champagne
Costanza Morino
Calvin Beck
Meven Philippe
Armelle Decaulne
Susan J. Conway
Abstract. Much work has been done to study the behaviour of long runout landslides and their associated longitudinal ridges, yet the origin of the hypermobility of such landslides and the formation mechanism of longitudinal ridges are poorly understood. As terrestrial long runout landslides emplaced on glaciers commonly exhibit longitudinal ridges, the presence of these landforms has been used to infer the presence of ice on Mars, where hundreds of well-preserved long runout landslides with longitudinal ridges are found. However, the presence of the same landforms in regions where extensive glaciations did not occur, for instance, on the Moon and in the Atacama region on Earth, suggests that ice is not the only factor influencing the formation of long runout landslides with longitudinal ridges.
Iceland is a unique region for its high spatial density of well-preserved hypermobile large landslides with longitudinal ridges. Here, we compiled the first catalogue of Icelandic long runout landslides with longitudinal ridges and we compared them with martian long runout landslides with longitudinal ridges of similar length. Moreover, we present detailed morphological observations of the Dalvík landslide deposit, in the Tröllaskagi peninsula, Iceland and compare them with morphological observations of martian landslides.
Our results show that Icelandic long runout landslides share key features with martian analogue deposits, including splitting of longitudinal ridges and development of associated en-echelon features. Therefore, Icelandic long runout landslides with longitudinal ridges represent good analogues of martian landforms. Moreover, Iceland represents the ideal site to investigate these landforms at a regional scale and their link with ice retreat following the Late Glacial Maximum, which could also provide insights into martian paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental conditions.
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Giulia Magnarini et al.
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RC1: 'Comment on esurf-2023-13', Daniel Ben-Yehoshua, 06 Jun 2023
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Dear Authors and Editors,
I had the pleasure to review this very interesting work titled: “Long Runout Landslides with Associated Longitudinal Ridges in Iceland as Analogues of Martian Landforms “. The study compares long runout landslide deposits with longitudinal ridges on Mars and Iceland. Since these morphological complexes are common in non-glaciated setting in Iceland, they act as extraordinary analogues for their Martian counterparts. The morphology of one specific landslide in Dalvík, Iceland was therefore studied in detail and compared to remote sensing observations from Mars.
Two databases are presented in this study. One for Icelandic landslides that have developed longitudinal ridges and one for Martian landslides with a runout distance of <5 km that show longitudinal ridges. The continuous development of such databases is an important contribution for the understanding of landslides in general and is valuable for future investigations.
The paper is generally well written, follows a logical structure, and is well illustrated. The applied method of comparing landforms on Mars with analogues on Earth is a widely accepted approach to infer parallels between depositional and environmental conditions during the formation of the described morphological features.
I added several correction suggestions for the presented figures including a more concise combination of figures 1, 4 and 6.
Furthermore, I requested a clarification in the text regarding why the presented Martian database was limited to a seemingly arbitrary runout distance of 5 km and suggest expanding it to a complete database which would certainly increase the significance of this work. However, I am aware that this would require a significant time investment and might be out of the scope of this work. Thus, a clarification of the 5 km cut-off value within the methods will be sufficient.
The discussion and conclusion should be expanded based on the descriptions presented in this work. It would be great to add a paragraph discussing why Icelandic landslides commonly form longitudinal ridges compared to other places on Earth and what we can infer from that for conditions on Mars and vice versa? This was the central theme of the introduction, and it is reasonable that the authors outline their thoughts on this in an additional paragraph. Adding this paragraph will round up the manuscript by reconnecting with the subject outlined in the introduction. Furthermore, it will increase the significance of this work. The conclusion paragraph should then be updated.
I added numerous comments with improvement suggestions to the attached pdf documents. If the authors decide to implement them all, it will require a significant time investment, which is why I chose the major revision option which gives the authors more time. However, some of these suggestions might be easily clarified in the text and the review may therefore be completed much quicker.
Thank you again for giving me the opportunity to read through this manuscript. I genuinely enjoyed reading it. With some extra work this study should become an excellent piece of work. If there are specific questions regarding my comments the authors may contact me directly.
Sincerely,
Daniel Ben-Yehoshua
Giulia Magnarini et al.
Giulia Magnarini et al.
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