We examine avalanche statistics of rain- and vibration-driven granular slides in miniature sand mounds. A crossover from power-law to non power-law avalanche-size statistics is demonstrated as a generic driving rate ν is increased. For slowly-driven mounds, the tail of the avalanche-size distribution is a power-law with exponent −1.97±0.31, reasonably close to the value previously reported for landslide volumes. The interevent occurrence times are also analyzed for slowly-driven mounds; its distribution exhibits a power-law with exponent −2.670±0.001.
Cite
@article{arxiv.0805.1582,
title = {Avalanche Statistics of Driven Granular Slides in a Miniature Mound},
author = {D. E. Juanico and A. Longjas and R. Batac and C. Monterola},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0805.1582},
year = {2008}
}