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A bonded-particle model for rock

The concept of strength envelopes, developed in the 1970s, allowed quantitative predictions of the strength of the lithosphere based on experimentally determined constitutive equations. Initial strength envelopes used an empirical relation for frictional sliding to describe deformation along brittle faults in the upper portion of the lithosphere and power law creep equations to estimate the plastic flow strength of rocks in the deeper part of the lithosphere. In the intervening decades, substantial progress has been made both in understanding the physical mechanisms involved in lithospheric deformation and in refining constitutive equations that describe these processes. The importance of a regime of semibrittle behavior is now recognized. Based on data from rocks without added pore fluids, the transition from brittle deformation to semibrittle flow can be estimated as the point at which the brittle fracture strength equals the peak stress to cause sliding. The transition from semibrittle deformation to plastic flow can be approximated as the stress at which the pressure exceeds the plastic flow strength. Current estimates of these stresses are on the order of a few hundred megapascals for relatively dry rocks. Knowledge of the stability of sliding along faults and of the onset of localization during brittle fracture has improved considerably. If the depth to the bottom of the seismogenic zone is determined by the transition to the stable frictional sliding regime, then that depth will be considerably more shallow than the depth of the transition to the plastic flow regime. Major questions concerning the strength of rocks remain. In particular, the effect of water on strength is critical to accurate predictions. Constitutive equations which include the effects of water fugacity and pore fluid pressure as well as temperature and strain rate are needed for both the brittle sliding and semibrittle flow regimes. Although the constitutive equations for dislocation creep and diffusional creep in single-phase aggregates are more robust, few data exist for plastic deformation in two-phase aggregates. Despite the fact that localization is ubiquitous in rocks deforming both in brittle and plastic regimes, only a limited amount of accurate experimental data are available to constrain predictions of this behavior. Accordingly, flow strengths now predicted from laboratory data probably overestimate the actual rock strength, perhaps by a significant amount. Still, the predictions are robust enough that uncertainties in geometry, mineralogy, loading conditions and thermodynamic state are probably the limiting factors in our understanding. Thus, experimentally determined rheologies can be applied to understand a broad range of topical problems in regional and global tectonics both on the Earth and on other planetary bodies.

Strength of the lithosphere: Constraints imposed by laboratory experiments

Characterizing flow and transport in fractured geological media: A review

We investigate a new algorithm for computing regularized solutions of the 2-D magnetotelluric inverse problem. The algorithm employs a nonlinear conjugate gradients (NLCG) scheme to minimize an objective function that penalizes data residuals and second spatial derivatives of resistivity. We compare this algorithm theoretically and numerically to two previous algorithms for constructing such “minimum‐structure” models: the Gauss‐Newton method, which solves a sequence of linearized inverse problems and has been the standard approach to nonlinear inversion in geophysics, and an algorithm due to Mackie and Madden, which solves a sequence of linearized inverse problems incompletely using a (linear) conjugate gradients technique. Numerical experiments involving synthetic and field data indicate that the two algorithms based on conjugate gradients (NLCG and Mackie‐Madden) are more efficient than the Gauss‐Newton algorithm in terms of both computer memory requirements and CPU time needed to find accurate solutio...

/pdf/nonlinear-conjugate-gradients-algorithm-for-2-d-ktm8gicvyc.pdf

Nonlinear conjugate gradients algorithm for 2-D magnetotelluric inversion

Scaling in fracture systems has become an active field of research in the last 25 years motivated by practical applications in hazardous waste disposal, hy- drocarbon reservoir management, and earthquake haz- ard assessment. Relevant publications are therefore spread widely through the literature. Although it is rec- ognized that some fracture systems are best described by scale-limited laws (lognormal, exponential), it is now recognized that power laws and fractal geometry provide widely applicable descriptive tools for fracture system characterization. A key argument for power law and fractal scaling is the absence of characteristic length scales in the fracture growth process. All power law and fractal characteristics in nature must have upper and lower bounds. This topic has been largely neglected, but recent studies emphasize the importance of layering on all scales in limiting the scaling characteristics of natural fracture systems. The determination of power law expo- nents and fractal dimensions from observations, al- though outwardly simple, is problematic, and uncritical use of analysis techniques has resulted in inaccurate and even meaningless exponents. We review these tech- niques and suggest guidelines for the accurate and ob- jective estimation of exponents and fractal dimensions. Syntheses of length, displacement, aperture power law exponents, and fractal dimensions are found, after crit- ical appraisal of published studies, to show a wide vari- ation, frequently spanning the theoretically possible range. Extrapolations from one dimension to two and from two dimensions to three are found to be nontrivial, and simple laws must be used with caution. Directions for future research include improved techniques for gathering data sets over great scale ranges and more rigorous application of existing analysis methods. More data are needed on joints and veins to illuminate the differences between different fracture modes. The phys- ical causes of power law scaling and variation in expo- nents and fractal dimensions are still poorly understood.

/pdf/scaling-of-fracture-systems-in-geological-media-1uq6op1ap8.pdf

Scaling of fracture systems in geological media

The causes of induced electrical polarization include not only the polarization of metal‐solution interfaces, but also effects associated with the coupling of different flows. Electro‐osmotic, thermal electric, and ion diffusion effects are among such examples. A study of the physical properties of geologic materials indicates that only electrode interface and diffusion flow phenomena are important sources of induced polarization effects. It was attempted to find characteristic differences between these two phenomena. Theoretical and experimental considerations show that the kinetic processes involved are quite similar in the two cases. This leads to difficulties in identifying the polarizing agent from electrical measurements, although the effects of well mineralized zones are easily recognized.

Induced polarization, a study of its causes

We have developed a robust and efficient finite difference algorithm for computing the magnetotelluric response of general three-dimensional (3-D) models using the minimum residual relaxation method. The difference equations that we solve are second order in H and are derived from the integral forms of Maxwell's equations on a staggered grid. The boundary H field values are obtained from two-dimensional transverse magnetic mode calculations for the vertical planes in the 3-D model. An incomplete Cholesky decomposition of the diagonal subblocks of the coefficient matrix is used as a preconditioner, and corrections are made to the H fields every few iterations to ensure there are no H divergences in the solution. For a plane wave source field, this algorithm reduces the errors in the H field for simple 3-D models to around the 0.01% level compared to their fully converged values in a modest number of iterations, taking only a few minutes of computation time on our desktop workstation. The E fields can then be determined from discretized versions of the curl of H equations.

Three-dimensional electromagnetic modeling using finite difference equations: The magnetotelluric example

We have developed an algorithm for computing the magnetotelluric response of three‐dimensional (3-D) earth models. It is a difference equation algorithm that is based on the integral forms of Maxwell’s equations rather than the differential forms. This formulation does not require approximating derivatives of earth properties or electromagnetic fields, as happens when using the second‐order vector diffusion equation. Rather, one must determine how averages are to be computed. Side boundary values for the H fields are obtained from putting two‐dimensional (2-D) slices of the model into a larger‐scale 2-D model and solving for the fields at the 3-D boundary positions. To solve the 3-D system of equations, we propagate an impedance matrix, which relates all the horizontal E fields in a layer to all the horizontal H fields in that same layer, up through the earth model. Applying a plane‐wave source condition and the side boundary H field values allows us to solve for the unknown fields within the model. The r...

Three-dimensional magnetotelluric modeling using difference equations­ Theory and comparisons to integral equation solutions

SUMMARY We have developed an inversion procedure that uses conjugate gradient relaxation methods. Although one can generalize the method to all inverse problems, we demonstrate its use to invert magnetotelluric data for 3-D earth models. This procedure allows us to bypass the actual computation of the sensitivity matrix A or the inversion of the ATA term. In fact, with the relaxation approach, one only needs to compute the effect of the sensitivity matrix or its transpose multiplying an arbitrary vector. We show that each of these requires one forward problem with a distributed set of sources either in the volume (for A multiplying a vector) or on the surface (for AT multiplying a vector). This significantly reduces the computational requirements needed to do a 3-D inversion. For this paper, we have simplified the boundary conditions by assuming the model is repeated in the horizontal directions, but this is not a necessary constraint of the method. The algorithm reduces data errors to the 2 per cent level for noise-free synthetic 3-D magnetotelluric data.

/pdf/three-dimensional-magnetotelluric-inversion-using-conjugate-naylhr6it1.pdf

Three-dimensional magnetotelluric inversion using conjugate gradients

We have developed rapid 3-D dc resistivity forward modeling and inversion algorithms that use conjugate gradient relaxation techniques. In the forward network modeling calculation, an incomplete Cholesky decomposition for preconditioning and sparse matrix routines combine to produce a fast and efficient algorithm (approximately 2 minutes CPU time on a Sun SPARCstation 2 for 50 X 50 X 20 blocks). The side and bottom boundary conditions are scaled impedance conditions that take into account the local current flow at the boundaries as a result of any configuration of current sources.For the inversion, conjugate gradient relaxation is used to solve the maximum likelihood inverse equations. Since conjugate gradient techniques only require the results of the sensitivity matrix A or its transpose A T multiplying a vector, we are able to bypass the actual computation of the sensitivity matrix and the inversion of A T A, thus greatly decreasing the time needed to do 3-D inversions.We demonstrate 3-D resistivity tomographic imaging using pole-pole resistivity data collected during an experiment for a leakage monitoring system near evaporation ponds at the Mojave Generating Station in Laughlin, Nevada.

/pdf/3-d-resistivity-forward-modeling-and-inversion-using-y6554y58xv.pdf

Theodore R. Madden

Papers

Induced polarization, a study of its causes

Three-dimensional electromagnetic modeling using finite difference equations: The magnetotelluric example

Three-dimensional magnetotelluric modeling using difference equations Theory and comparisons to integral equation solutions

Three-dimensional magnetotelluric inversion using conjugate gradients

3-D resistivity forward modeling and inversion using conjugate gradients

Theodore R. Madden

Papers

Induced polarization, a study of its causes

Three-dimensional electromagnetic modeling using finite difference equations: The magnetotelluric example

Three-dimensional magnetotelluric modeling using difference equations­ Theory and comparisons to integral equation solutions

Three-dimensional magnetotelluric inversion using conjugate gradients

3-D resistivity forward modeling and inversion using conjugate gradients

Three-dimensional magnetotelluric modeling using difference equations Theory and comparisons to integral equation solutions