Anomalies of critical state in fracturing geophysical objects

A. Chmel (1) , V. S. Kuksenko (1) , V. S. Smirnov (2) , N. G. Tomilin (1)

1 A.F. Ioffe Physical-Technical Institute
2 AARI - Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute

Non-linear time-sequences of fracture-related events were studied in drifting sea-ice and fracturing rock. A reversible drop of the b-value was detected prior to the large-scale sea-ice cover fragmentation, when the time sequence of impact interactions between ice-fields was fully decorrelated. A similar loss of the temporal invariance of the fracture process was revealed in the time sequence of microfracture events detected in a loaded rock sample. These temporal gaps in the continuous critical state of the considered self-organizing, open systems were attributed to the property of hierarchicity inherent in the geophysical objects. A combination of scaling and hierarchic features in the behavior of fracturing solids manifests itself in the heterogeneity of the temporal pattern of fracture process.

Domaines: Cosmologie et astrophysique extra-galactique [astro-ph.CO]; Astrophysique [astro-ph]; Sciences de la Terre

A. Chmel, V. S. Kuksenko, V. S. Smirnov, N. G. Tomilin. Anomalies of critical state in fracturing geophysical objects. Nonlinear Processes in Geophysics, 2007, 14 (2), pp.103-108. ⟨hal-00302832⟩