Roughness of stylolites: a stress-induced instability with non local interactions

J. Schmittbuhl; F. Renard; J. P. Gratier

Roughness of stylolites: a stress-induced instability with non local interactions

Disordered Systems and Neural Networks 2007-05-23 v1 Materials Science

Authors: J. Schmittbuhl , F. Renard , J. P. Gratier

Abstract

We study the roughness of stylolite surfaces (i.e. natural pressure-dissolution surfaces in sedimentary rocks) from profiler measurements at laboratory scales. The roughness is shown to be nicely described by a self-affine scaling invariance. At large scales, the roughness exponent is $\zeta_1 \approx 0.5$ and very different from that at small scales where $\zeta_2 \approx 1.1$ . A cross-over length scale at around $\lambda_c =1$ mm is well characterized and interpreted as a possible fossil stress measurement if related to the Asaro-Tiller-Grinfeld stress-induced instability. Measurements are consistent with a Langevin equation that describes the growth of stylolite surfaces in a quenched disordered material with long range elastic correlations.

Keywords

stylolite roughness exponent stress-induced instability self-affine scaling Langevin equation

Cite

@article{arxiv.cond-mat/0303057,
  title  = {Roughness of stylolites: a stress-induced instability with non local interactions},
  author = {J. Schmittbuhl and F. Renard and J. P. Gratier},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:cond-mat/0303057},
  year   = {2007}
}

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4 pages, 5 figures

Roughness of stylolites: a stress-induced instability with non local interactions

Abstract

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