It travels a great horizontal distance (as much as 20 or 30 times), compared to its initial vertical drop.
[2][3] They have been found on other bodies in the Solar System, including the Moon, Mars, Venus, Io, Callisto, Iapetus,[4][5] and Phobos.
Sturzstroms may be triggered, similarly to other types of landslides, by heavy rains, earthquakes, or volcanic activity.
Observation of slides on Iapetus suggests that tiny contact points between bits of ice debris may heat up considerably during the movement, causing melting and forming a more fluid – and thus less friction-limited – mass of material.
This has been hypothesized to be volcanic in origin or the result of a meteorite impact, but the leading hypothesis is that it was due to the large amount of internal friction.