Quake Catalogs from an Optical Monitoring of an Interfacial Crack Propagation

Using an experimental setup which allows to follow optically the propagation of an interfacial crack front in a heterogeneous medium, we show that the fracture front dynamics is governed by local and irregular avalanches with large velocity fluctuations. Events defined as high velocity bursts are ra...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Pure and applied geophysics 2009-07, Vol.166 (5-7), p.777-799
Main Authors: Grob, M., Schmittbuhl, J., Toussaint, R., Rivera, L., Santucci, S., Måløy, K. J.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Crack propagation
Dynamics
Earth and Environmental Science
Earth Sciences
Earth, ocean, space
Earthquakes
Earthquakes, seismology
Exact sciences and technology
Fracture mechanics
Fractures
Geophysics
Geophysics/Geodesy
Interfacial cracks
Internal geophysics
Plate tectonics
Sciences of the Universe
Seismic activity
Seismic phenomena
Seismicity
Seismology
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Summary:Using an experimental setup which allows to follow optically the propagation of an interfacial crack front in a heterogeneous medium, we show that the fracture front dynamics is governed by local and irregular avalanches with large velocity fluctuations. Events defined as high velocity bursts are ranked in catalogs with analogous characteristics to seismicity catalogs: time of occurence, epicenter location and energy parameter (moment). Despite differences in the fracturing mode (opening for the experiments and shear rupture for earthquakes), in the acquisition mode and in the range of time scales, the distributions of moment and epicenter jumps in the experimental catalogs obey the same scaling laws with exponents similar to the corresponding distributions for earthquakes. The record-breaking event analysis also shows very strong similarities between experimental and real seismicity catalogs. The results suggest that the dynamics of crack propagation is controlled by the elastic interactions between microstructures within the material.
ISSN:0033-4553
1420-9136
DOI:10.1007/s00024-004-0496-z