Pattern formation in the geosciences

Goehring, Lucas

doi:10.1098/rsta.2012.0352

Cited by 12 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 24 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…In addition, highconcentration particulate flows such as landslides can be described as viscoplastic fluids [37,49,50]. The scope of our paper is framed by this context, as well as studies presenting successful complementary views on geomorphology, most notably: the formal statistical mechanics formulation of sediment transport by Furbish and colleagues [51,52], and related probabilistic and stochastic approaches in geomorphology [53][54][55][56]; nonlinear/dynamical-systems approaches to landscape pattern formation [57][58][59][60]; hydrodynamic and classical stability analyses [3,4]; and reviews justifying the applicability of smallscale experiments to natural landscapes [61,62].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Viewing Earth’s surface as a soft-matter landscape

Jerolmack

Daniels

2019

Nat Rev Phys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The Earth's surface is composed of a staggering diversity of particulate-fluid mixtures: dry to wet, dilute to dense, colloidal to granular, and attractive to repulsive particles. This material variety is matched by the range of relevant stresses and strain rates, from laminar to turbulent flows, and steady to intermittent forcing, leading to anything from rapid and catastrophic landslides to the slow relaxation of soil and rocks over geologic timescales. Geophysical flows sculpt landscapes, but also threaten human lives and infrastructure. From a physics point of view, virtually all Earth and planetary landscapes are composed of soft matter, in the sense they are both deformable and sensitive to collective effects. Geophysical materials, however, often involve compositions and flow geometries that have not yet been examined in physics. In this review we explore how a soft-matter perspective has helped to illuminate, and even predict, the rich dynamics of Earth materials and their associated landscapes. We also highlight some novel phenomena of geophysical flows that challenge, and will hopefully inspire, more fundamental work in soft matter.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Viewing Earth’s surface as a soft-matter landscape

Jerolmack

Daniels

2019

Nat Rev Phys

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Desiccation crack patterns observed in natural systems span many orders of magnitude in size ( Fig. 1) [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Among the large diversity of desiccation crack patterns, polygonal patterns are the most common.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Universal scaling of polygonal desiccation crack patterns

Lowensohn

Burton

2019

Phys. Rev. E

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Polygonal desiccation crack patterns are commonly observed in natural systems. Despite their quotidian nature, it is unclear whether similar crack patterns which span orders of magnitude in length scales share the same underlying physics. In thin films, the characteristic length of polygonal cracks is known to monotonically increase with the film thickness, however, existing theories that consider the mechanical, thermodynamic, hydrodynamic, and statistical properties of cracking often lead to contradictory predictions. Here we experimentally investigate polygonal cracks in drying suspensions of micron-sized particles by varying film thickness, boundary adhesion, packing fraction, and solvent. Although polygonal cracks were observed in most systems above a critical film thickness, in cornstarch-water mixtures, multi-scale crack patterns were observed due to two distinct desiccation mechanisms. Large-scale, primary polygons initially form due to capillary-induced film shrinkage, whereas small-scale, secondary polygons appear later due to the deswelling of the hygroscopic particles. In addition, we find that the characteristic area of the polygonal cracks, Ap, obeys a universal power law, Ap = αh 4/3 , where h is the film thickness. By quantitatively linking α with the material properties during crack formation, we provide a robust framework for understanding multi-scale polygonal crack patterns from microscopic to geologic scales. arXiv:1807.06126v2 [cond-mat.soft]

show abstract

“…The characteristic cluster size has been found to vary widely depending on drying dynamics, packing size, friction with a substrate, capillarity, and grain-scale factors such as grain stiffness and size [9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. Recent work has taken a first step towards predicting these dependencies by applying classical Griffith crack theory, in which cracking is governed by a balance of strain and surface energies [22,23], to granular packings [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]. However, while this approach can describe how the characteristic cluster size scales with packing thickness [21], quantitative prediction of cluster size remains elusive for many materials.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Grain shrinkage is common to many materials including clays, soils, coatings, biological tissues, and foods, for which the stresses resulting from shrinkage often dominate over externally applied stresses [24,25]. Nevertheless, while some models account for macroscopic shrinkage during drying by considering grain densification and deformation [14][15][16][17][18][19][20], only recently has individual grain shrinkage been recognized as a factor that can strongly affect cracking-often in unexpected ways [26]. Unfortunately, how grain shrinkage influences the final cluster size after drying is unknown; no current theory of cracking incorporates this behavior.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling Law for Cracking in Shrinkable Granular Packings

Cho

Datta

2019

Phys. Rev. Lett.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Hydrated granular packings often crack into discrete clusters of grains when dried. Despite its ubiquity, accurate prediction of cracking remains elusive. Here, we elucidate the previously overlooked role of individual grain shrinkage-a feature common to many materials-in determining crack patterning using both experiments and simulations. By extending the classical Griffith crack theory, we obtain a scaling law that quantifies how cluster size depends on the interplay between grain shrinkage, stiffness, and size-applicable to a diverse array of shrinkable, granular packings.

show abstract

Pattern formation in the geosciences

Cited by 12 publications

References 24 publications

Viewing Earth’s surface as a soft-matter landscape

Viewing Earth’s surface as a soft-matter landscape

Universal scaling of polygonal desiccation crack patterns

Scaling Law for Cracking in Shrinkable Granular Packings

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About