Related papers: Viewing Earth's surface as a soft matter landscape

Most studies on granular physics have focused on dry granular media, with no liquids between the grains. However, in geology and many real world applications (e.g., food processing, pharmaceuticals, ceramics, civil engineering,…

Geometrical properties of landscapes result from the geological processes that have acted through time. The quantitative analysis of natural relief represents an objective form of aiding in the visual interpretation of landscapes, as…

In this review we summarize theoretical progress in the field of active matter, placing it in the context of recent experiments. Our approach offers a unified framework for the mechanical and statistical properties of living matter:…

We present an overview of the differential geometry of curves and surfaces using examples from soft matter as illustrations. The presentation requires a background only in vector calculus and is otherwise self-contained.

This article discussesl a few of the problems that arise in geophysical fluid dynamics and climate that are associated with the presence of moisture in the air, its condensation and release of latent heat. Our main focus is Earth's…

When wet soil becomes fully saturated by intense rainfall, or is shaken by an earthquake, it may fluidize catastrophically. Sand-rich slurries are treated as granular suspensions, where the failure is related to an unjamming transition. Mud…

The terminology granular matter refers to systems with a large number of hard objects (grains) of mesoscopic size ranging from millimeters to meters. Geological examples include desert sand and the rocks of a landslide. But the scope of…

The variation of energies associated with soft matter interfaces where surface inhomogeneities are present. These energies include the total bending and splay energy, the variable surface tension energy, a coupling energy between the total…

We review a new interdisciplinary field between Geology and Physics: the study of the Earth's geo-neutrino flux. We describe competing models for the composition of the Earth, present geological insights into the make up of the continental…

Many soft and biological materials display so-called 'soft glassy' dynamics; their constituents undergo anomalous random motions and complex cooperative rearrangements. A recent simulation model of one soft glassy material, a coarsening…

An increasing variety of crystal structures has been observed in soft condensed matter over the past two decades, surpassing most expectations for the diversity of arrangements accessible through classical driving forces. Here, we survey…

Thousands of plant and animal species have been observed to have superhydrophobic surfaces that lead to various novel behaviors [1-5]. These observations have inspired attempts to create artificial superhydrophobic surfaces, given such…

The surrounding world surprises us by the beauty and variety of complex shapes that emerge from nanometric to macroscopic scales. Natural or manufactured materials (sandstones, sedimentary rocks and cement), colloidal solutions (proteins…

In this paper geology and planetology are considered using new conceptual basis of high-speed flow dynamics. Recent photo technics allow to see all details of a flow, 'cause the flow is static during very short time interval. On the other…

To build insight into the atmosphere and ocean, it is useful to apply qualitative reasoning to predict the geophysical fluid dynamicss of worlds radically different from our own such as exoplanets, earth in Nuclear Winter, other solar…

Gravity-driven flows of granular matter are involved in a wide variety of situations, ranging from industrial processes to geophysical phenomena, such as avalanches or landslides. These flows are characterized by the coexistence of solid…

Most modern theoretical considerations of the physical world suggest that nature is: (1) field-theoretic, (2) smooth, (3) local, (4) gauged, (5) containing fermions, and (6) non-perturbative. Tautologous as this may sound to experts, it is…

Many problems in physics, material sciences, chemistry and biology can be abstractly formulated as a system that navigates over a complex energy landscape of high or infinite dimensions. Well-known examples include phase transitions of…

Granular media are soft matter systems that exhibit some of the extreme behavior of complex fluids. Understanding of the natural formation of planetary bodies, landing on and exploring them, future engineering of structures beyond Earth and…

Water and land surfaces on a planet interact with gases in the atmosphere and with radiation from the star. These interactions define the environments that prevail on the planet, some of which may be more amenable to prebiotic chemistry,…