Pavonis Mons stands as much as 7 kilometers above the surrounding plain. There is a chain of elliptical pits on the lower east flank of Pavonis Mons. The pits are aligned down the center of a shallow trough. The straight trough and the pits were both formed by collapse associated with faulting. The scarp on each side of the trough is a fault line. Such features are typically formed when the ground is being moved apart by tectonic forces, or when the ground is uplifted by molten rock injected into the near sub-surface from deeper underground.