Lunar Lobate Thrust Fault Scarp

This prominent lunar lobate thrust fault scarp is one of thousands discovered in Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera (LROC) images. The fault scarp or cliff is like a stair-step in the lunar landscape (left-pointing white arrows) formed when the near-surface crust is pushed together, breaks, and is thrust upward along a fault as the Moon contracts. Boulder fields, patches of relatively high bright soil or regolith, are found on the scarp face and back scarp terrain (right-pointing arrows).