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Primary creep encodes time to failure across laboratory and natural systems

Qinghua Lei, Didier Sornette

Abstract

Geomaterials often exhibit progressive creep characterized by an initial decelerating phase, frequently followed by an extended period of approximately constant deformation rate, and ultimately an accelerating regime leading to catastrophic failure. Despite extensive research, the timing of rupture and its relationship to the different creep phases, particularly in natural systems, remain poorly constrained. Here, we compile creep data from laboratory experiments on rocks, composites, papers, and glasses, together with observations from field systems including landslides, rockfalls, and glaciers. We find that the duration of the early-stage creep, marked by the transition to the minimum (or quasi-stationary) deformation rate, correlates nearly linearly with the time to rupture over five orders of magnitude. This unified scaling highlights that the early-time dynamics reflect the full evolution toward failure, providing a simple and robust framework for forecasting rupture across laboratory and natural systems.

Primary creep encodes time to failure across laboratory and natural systems

Abstract

Geomaterials often exhibit progressive creep characterized by an initial decelerating phase, frequently followed by an extended period of approximately constant deformation rate, and ultimately an accelerating regime leading to catastrophic failure. Despite extensive research, the timing of rupture and its relationship to the different creep phases, particularly in natural systems, remain poorly constrained. Here, we compile creep data from laboratory experiments on rocks, composites, papers, and glasses, together with observations from field systems including landslides, rockfalls, and glaciers. We find that the duration of the early-stage creep, marked by the transition to the minimum (or quasi-stationary) deformation rate, correlates nearly linearly with the time to rupture over five orders of magnitude. This unified scaling highlights that the early-time dynamics reflect the full evolution toward failure, providing a simple and robust framework for forecasting rupture across laboratory and natural systems.
Paper Structure (7 sections, 2 figures)

This paper contains 7 sections, 2 figures.

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Results
  3. Discussion
  4. Conclusions
  5. Acknowledgments
  6. Author Contributions
  7. Preprint Statement

Figures (2)

  • Figure 1: Creep evolution in laboratory and natural systems: (A) Etna basalt specimen, (B) Veslemannen landslide, and (C) Weissmies glacier. In each case, creep strain or displacement rate is plotted versus time on a linear scale (left), versus time since the onset of primary creep on a logarithmic scale (middle), and versus time to failure on a logarithmic scale (right). Circles mark the transition time corresponding to the minimum deformation rate. Dashed lines show reference power law trends, with exponents indicated.
  • Figure 2: Scaling between transition time $t_\mathrm{m}$ and failure time $t_\mathrm{f}$ across laboratory samples (composite, paper, rock, and glass) and natural systems (landslides, rockfalls, and glaciers). The solid line shows a power law fit and the dashed line indicates a linear relation. Error bars represent the uncertainty in transition time, estimated from the local variability of the deformation rate and its temporal gradient at the minimum (see Text S1 in Supplemental Material).