Oscillations in critical shearing, application to fractures in glaciers

Abstract. Many evidences of oscillations accompanying the acceleration of critical systems have been reported. These oscillations are usually related to discrete scale invariance properties of the systems and exhibit a logarithmic periodicity. In this paper we propose another explanation for these oscillations in the case of shearing fracture. Using a continuum damage model, we show that oscillations emerge from the anisotropic properties of the cracks in the shearing fracture zone. These oscillations no longer exhibit a logarithmic but rather a power-law periodicity. The power-periodic oscillation is a more general formulation. Its reduces to a log-periodic oscillation when the exponent of the power-law equals one. We apply this model to fit the measured displacements of unstable ice masses of hanging glaciers for which data are available. Results show that power-periodic oscillations adequately fit the observations.