The north portion of Pluto's ridge line has mountain ranges that run mostly vertical. It seems to me Sputnik Planitia (SP) has created a softened area in the middle of Pluto and gravity is squeezing the planet into a tighter ball which is creating ripples in the surface land ice. As fluid rises to the surface of SP and sublimates, cavities are left underground. Gravity is folding the surface land ice to fill these voids. |
Here you can see how the elevated arid desert dune mountains (Tartarus Dorsa) have fat finger like bulged rolling mountain ridge lines (from subsurface pressure) and the land ice has fractured under the stress showing a vertical wall covered with tholin. Page 24 explains why the Tartarus Dorsa mountain ranges are desert dunes. |
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In this image you can see how wind has blown material (tholin) off some icebergs which are floating in the nitrogen. This shows the direction of the strongest winds coming from the north and blowing southward. In the images below you will see how the mud dauber like mounds are all facing south indicating how the same direction of wind blowing effect is building the mounds with all their openings facing south. |
These two images are from the one large image above and are blown up for clarity.
The image immediately above shows possible waterfalls (not actual water or liquid but rather mobile ices) and fluid creating mud daubers. The upper mud dauber is releasing tholin while the second tier mud dauber is releasing gray nitrogen fluid. The image to the left shows possible fluids flowing out of vent holes creating mud daubers. |
This whole section of land east of SP is like the mud pits at Yellowstone National Park.
When the mud like cold nitrogen magma bubbles upward, the surface 40K temperature freezes some portion of the mud along the rim. The wind blowing southward causes the freezing mud to fold over toward the south. This process repeats over and over creating the mud dauber like wind blown frozen south facing saw blade features that make up this terrain. |
Over time these bubbles of nitrogen magma mud harden into weak frozen mounds but because of the high winds they lean over sideways but retain a somewhat frigid angular look.
This along with low gravity allows space objects to hit Pluto at this area east of Sputnik Planum but not leave much in the way of evidence of the impact. Falling objects are absorbed into the landscape then the thick mud fluid bubbles back into the hole creating new vents. |
While this isn't mountain building by folding, it is mountain building by repeated freezing of gasses heavily laden with moist nitrogen methane and tholin.
There is little to no water ice in these areas so this must be nitrogen/methane bubbling up from below slowly building mountainous mounds. This material is also be somewhat soft as there are no craters from impacts. As an object impacts, it is swallowed then new mud daubers build up rather quickly. I imagine it to be somewhat of a weird material like this Saturnian moon called Hyperion. Hyperion is primarily water ice but it's so bizarre I just had to add it here. To me, this process of mud dauber building qualifies as tectonics through cryovolcanism. |