Rock Melt (IMAGE)

Duke University

Rock Melt

Caption

Researchers twist rock discs against one another under large amounts of pressure at high speeds to simulate what happens during earthquakes at fault lines. New models from Duke engineers are the first that can accurately reproduce how the amount of friction decreases as the speed of the rock slippage increases and the rock undergoes a phase change.

Credit

Giulio DiToro (University of Padova), Elena Spagnuolo and Stefano Aretusini (National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, Rome)

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