Soils as Yield-Stress Materials? Athermal Creep Facilitated by Cyclic Perturbations

Explore the complex behavior of soils as yield-stress materials in this 47-minute conference talk examining how athermal creep is facilitated by cyclic perturbations. Delve into the fascinating intersection of geophysics and soft matter physics as the speaker investigates how Earth materials like soil, mud, ice, and rocks exist in a transitional state between solid and fluid depending on timescales. Learn about the soft matter landscape we inhabit and discover how observed Earth behaviors including glassy dynamics, strain localization, memory encoding in microstructure, active matter, and complex yielding relate to familiar themes in soft matter physics. Understand the novel challenges presented by the unique mixtures, excitations, geometries, and scales associated with soft Earth problems. Gain insights into cutting-edge research demonstrating how frontiers in geophysics also represent frontiers in soft matter physics, and how combining these fields may lead to significant advances in both disciplines. Examine theoretical and experimental approaches to understanding creep and yielding in amorphous materials, multi-scale dynamics of earth materials, and geophysical field observations that require innovative theoretical frameworks. Consider applications to real-world phenomena including landslides, earthquakes, erosion, glaciers, and exotic transport phenomena of earth materials.