Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, images from the Lunar Orbiter 3 and Mariner 9 showed for the first time the existence of spectacular landslides on the surface of the Moon and Mars, respectively. These landslides are called long-runout landslides and they were known on Earth since the late 19th century. Long-runout landslides are hypermobile landslides that are able to move at high velocity over sub-horizontal surfaces for tens of kilometres. Such hypermobility requires a dramatic reduction of friction, which origin remains debated. In this talk I will show you the latest high-resolution images of martian, terrestrial and lunar long-runout landslides and how this dataset is used to generate digital elevation models that help investigating the behaviour of long-runout landslides. The talk will end by discussing the only extra-terrestrial long-runout landslide ever explored by humans, located near the Apollo 17 landing site on the Moon.
About the speaker
Giulia has recently finished her PhD in the Department of Earth Sciences at UCL, where she studied the formation mechanism of long runout landslides. Giulia is now a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the Natural History Museum in London working on recent and active surface processes on the Moon. Her current research mostly focuses on lunar faults activity and impact cratering. She also continues studying long-runout landslides on Mars focussing on their relationship with martian tectonics and climate history. Giulia is involved with the NASA Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) programme, studying a recently opened Apollo 17 sample that was collected from a landslide deposit
In the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, images from the Lunar Orbiter 3 and Mariner 9 showed for the first time the existence of spectacular landslides on the surface of the Moon and Mars, respectively. These landslides are called long-runout landslides and they were known on Earth since the late 19th century. Long-runout landslides are hypermobile landslides that are able to move at high velocity over sub-horizontal surfaces for tens of kilometres. Such hypermobility requires a dramatic reduction of friction, which origin remains debated. In this talk I will show you the latest high-resolution images of martian, terrestrial and lunar long-runout landslides and how this dataset is used to generate digital elevation models that help investigating the behaviour of long-runout landslides. The talk will end by discussing the only extra-terrestrial long-runout landslide ever explored by humans, located near the Apollo 17 landing site on the Moon.
About the speaker
Giulia has recently finished her PhD in the Department of Earth Sciences at UCL, where she studied the formation mechanism of long runout landslides. Giulia is now a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the Natural History Museum in London working on recent and active surface processes on the Moon. Her current research mostly focuses on lunar faults activity and impact cratering. She also continues studying long-runout landslides on Mars focussing on their relationship with martian tectonics and climate history. Giulia is involved with the NASA Apollo Next Generation Sample Analysis (ANGSA) programme, studying a recently opened Apollo 17 sample that was collected from a landslide deposit
