Related papers: Seismic precursory patterns before a cliff collaps…

Quasi brittle materials such as rock and bone are understood to fail via microcrack coalescence. The accompanying Acoustic Emission (AE) event rate is known to increase as failure progresses. Here we examine the progression of the AE event…

During inter-eruption periods, magma pressurization yields subtle changes of the elastic properties of volcanic edifices. We use the reproducibility properties of the ambient seismic noise recorded on the Piton de la Fournaise volcano to…

The statistics of natural catastrophes contains very counter-intuitive results. Using earthquakes as a working example, we show that the energy radiated by such events follows a power-law or Pareto distribution. This means, in theory, that…

An axisymmetric collapse of non-rotating gravitational waves is numerically investigated in the subcritical regime where no black holes form but where curvature attains a maximum and decreases, following the dispersion of the initial wave…

Disordered solids respond to quasistatic shear with intermittent avalanches of plastic activity, an example of the crackling noise observed in many nonequilibrium critical systems. The temporal power spectrum of activity within disordered…

Continuum mechanics describes compressive failure as a standard bifurcation in the response of a material to an increasing load: damage, which initially grows uniformly in the material, localizes within a thin band at failure. Yet,…

A major part of the seismicity striking the Mediterranean area and other regions worldwide is hosted in carbonate rocks. Recent examples are the destructive earthquakes of L'Aquila Mw 6.1 2009 and Norcia Mw 6.5 2016 in Central Italy.…

An accurate understanding of the interplay between random and deterministic processes in generating extreme events is of critical importance in many fields, from forecasting extreme meteorological events to the catastrophic failure of…

Extending the central concept of recurrence times for a point process to recurrent events in space-time allows us to characterize seismicity as a record breaking process using only spatiotemporal relations among events. Linking record…

Ruptures of the largest earthquakes can last between a few seconds and several minutes. An early assessment of the final earthquake size is essential for early warning systems. However, it is still unclear when in the rupture history this…

We propose a new type of earthquake precursor based on the analysis of correlation dynamics between geophysical signals of different nature. The precursor is found using a two-parameter cross-correlation function introduced within the…

A hanging glacier at the east face of Weisshorn (Switzerland) broke off in 2005. We were able to monitor and measure surface motion and icequake activity for 25 days up to three days prior to the break-off. The analysis of seismic waves…

We investigate the breakdown of disordered networks under the action of an increasing external---mechanical or electrical---force. We perform a mean-field analysis and estimate scaling exponents for the approach to the instability. By…

Accelerating displacements preceding some catastrophic landslides have been found empirically to follow a time-to-failure power law, corresponding to a finite-time singularity of the velocity $v \sim 1/(t_c-t)$ [{\it Voight}, 1988]. Here,…

I adapted a model recently introduced in the context of seismic phenomena, to study creep rupture of materials. It consists of linear elastic fibers that interact in an equal load sharing scheme, complemented with a local viscoelastic…

We find the static displacement, stress, strain and the modified Columb failure stress produced in an elastic medium by a finite size rectangular fault after its dislocation with uniform stress drop but a non uniform dislocation on the…

We numerically investigate the threshold of black-hole formation in the gravitational collapse of electromagnetic waves in axisymmetry. We find approximate power-law scaling $\rho_{\rm max}\sim (\eta_*-\eta)^{-2\gamma}$ of the maximum…

Earthquakes are rupture-like processes that propagate along tectonic faults and cause seismic waves. The propagation speed and final area of the rupture, which determine an earthquake's potential impact, are directly related to the nature…

The way granular materials response to an applied shear stress is of the utmost relevance to both human activities and natural environment. One of the their most intriguing and less understood behavior, is the stick-instability, whose most…

We propose a novel method for analyzing precursory seismic data before an earthquake that treats them as a Markov process and distinguishes the background noise from real fluctuations due to an earthquake. A short time (on the order of…