Solid Earth
Solid Earth
Solid Earth
Articles | Volume 10, issue 4
Articles | Volume 10, issue 4
Solid Earth, 10, 1385–1395, 2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-1385-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Solid Earth, 10, 1385–1395, 2019
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-10-1385-2019
© Author(s) 2019. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Articles | Volume 10, issue 4
Research article
21 Aug 2019
Research article | 21 Aug 2019

What happens to fracture energy in brittle fracture? Revisiting the Griffith assumption

Timothy R. H. Davies et al.

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Short summary
Griffith (1921) assumed that energy used to create new surface area by breaking intact rock immediately becomes surface energy which is not available for further breakage. Our lab data disprove this assumption; we created much more new surface area, 90 % on submicron fragments, than the energy involved should allow. As technology allows ever smaller fragments to be measured, continued use of the Griffith assumption will lead to incorrect energy budgets for earthquakes and rock avalanches.
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