Post by Giulia Magnarini, PhD candidate, Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, UK.
The availability of high resolution imagery of the surface of Mars from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter CTX and HiRISE cameras (NASA PDS) allow us to reconstruct fantastic 3D views of the martian topography using stereophotogrammetry technique. Digital terrain models (DTMs) are obtained using the difference in two images of the same target taken from different angles. In the process, orthoimages are generated and draped over the DTM. CTX stereo-derived DTMs have 20 m/px resolution; HiRISE stereo-derived DTMs have 1-2 m/px resolution. This technique is applied to the study of martian long runout landslides and it represents a powerful tool, as the 3D reconstruction allows detailed observations and morphometric analysis of these landforms and their morphological features (Images 1-3).

Image 1: Long runout landslide in Ganges Chasma, Valles Marineris, Mars. CTX stereo-derived DTM at the Mineral and Planetary Sciences division of the Natural History Museum in London. Vertical exaggeration 2x. Image pair: P20_008681_1722_XN_07S044W and P20_009037_1718_XN_08S044W.