Plates are an integral part of the convection system in the fluid mantle, but plate boundaries are the product of brittle faulting and plate motions are strongly influenced by the existence of such faults. The conditions for plate tectonics are studied by considering brittle behaviour, using Byerlee’s law to limit the maximum stress in the lithosphere, in a mantle convection model with temperat...

The aim of the present paper is a systematic elab1 oration of a three dimensional finite element analysis tool for 2 discontinuous fracture in brittle solids. Brittle or quasi-brittle 3 fracture usually occurs when a material reaches the limit of its 4 strength and no plastic deformation has been observed prior 5 to failure. In the present approach, this kind of failure is char6 acterized by th...

S U M M A R Y We document space-dependent clustering properties of earthquakes with m ≥ 4 in the 1975– 2015 worldwide seismic catalogue of the Northern California Earthquake Data Center. Earthquake clusters are identified using a nearest-neighbour distance in time–space–magnitude domain. Multiple cluster characteristics are compared with the heat flow level and type of deformation defined by pa...

It is well known that glass undergoes elastic and inelastic deformation under a sharp diamond indenter. Although brittle or less brittle behavior of glass must be connected with such mechanical responses of glass under the indenter, there has been limited research on in situ deformation behavior of glass during the loading and unloading indentation cycle. This is because most indentation tests ...

New Ar-Ar muscovite and Rb-Sr biotite age data in combination with structural analyses from the Apuseni Mountains provide new constraints on the timing and kinematics of deformation during the Cretaceous. Time-temperature paths from the structurally highest basement nappe of the Apuseni Mountains in combination with sedimentary data indicate exhumation and a position close to the surface after ...

A unified framework of continuum elasticity, inelasticity, damage mechanics, and fragmentation in crushable solid materials is presented. A free energy function accounts for thermodynamics of elastic deformation and damage, and thermodynamically admissible kinetic relations are given for inelastic rates (i.e., irreversible strain and damage evolution). The model is further specialized to study ...

[1] Even though the rheology of thrust wedges is mostly frictional, a basal ductile decollement is often involved. By comparison with purely frictional wedges, such brittleductile wedges generally display anomalous structures such as backward vergence, widely spaced thrust units, and nonfrontward sequences of thrust development. Laboratory experiments are used here to study the deformation of b...

Mechanical properties of biological materials are increasingly explored via nanoindentation testing. This paper reviews the modes of deformation found during indentation: elastic, plastic, viscous and fracture. A scheme is provided for ascertaining which deformation modes are active during a particular indentation test based on the load-displacement trace. Two behavior maps for indentation are ...

An experimental study of the inelastic deformation of bulk metallic glass Zr41.2Ti13.8Cu12.5Ni10Be22.5 under multiaxial compression using a confining sleeve technique is presented. In contrast to the catastrophic shear failure (brittle) in uniaxial compression, the metallic glass exhibited large inelastic deformation of more than 10% under confinement, demonstrating the nature of ductile deform...

A scaling analysis of the deformation of Arctic sea ice over a 3-day time period is performed for scales of 10 to 1000 km. The deformation field is derived from satellite radar data; it allows us to study how a very large solid body-the Arctic sea-ice cover-deforms under the action of heterogeneous forcing winds and ocean currents. The deformation is strongly localized at small scales, and can ...