Figure 3. CTX mosaic (enlarged part of Figure 2) showing examples of E-W trending strike-slip fault morphologies within mNp, including releasing and restraining stepovers and bends. Small restraining stepover features may constitute either the positive flower structures or the push-up ridges summarized in Cunningham and Mann [2007]. The larger mound in the central part of the figure demonstrates a possible sinistral offset of approximately 1.6 km. North at top.
On Earth, the identification of topographic features at bends or steps along the structures suggest a component of lateral slip. In Bathys Planum, topographic depressions can be identified at left bends or steps in the faults, and positive topographic features (small hills) present at right bends and steps (typical dimensions 100-200 m width, 100 m-2 km length). This morphology mimics topographic features along terrestrial strike-slip faults [e.g., Sylvester, 1988; Christie-Blick and Biddle, 1985; Cunningham and Mann, 2007] and suggests that these structures exhibit a component of left-lateral strike slip. This sense of slip is also supported by the apparent left-lateral offset of the larger hill in the central part of the area (Figure 3). Towards the peripheries of the region of interest, the structures occasionally manifest as compressional faults with vertical offsets reaching 130 m (Golombek et al., [2001]; Watters, [1998]).