Active landslides on the Moon.

ABSTRACT: Mass wasting of slope materials is a fundamental surface process on the Moon, yet its current activity and geohazard risks remain unconstrained. Here, we analyse multi-temporal images for terrains representing the least stable areas on the Moon, revealing new landslides formed in the past 15 years. The new landslides are superficial and small in size, displacing materials that are significantly less than 10⁵ m³ in volume. With localized occurrences, new landslides may pose limited hazards to future surface explorations, except for slope-proximal facilities and operations. Without a clear genetic relationship with thermal weathering of exposed crystalline rocks, ∼29% of the new landslides were likely triggered by new impact events, but the efficiency is comparatively s

SUBMITTER: Xiao Z 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12576953 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature