scholarly journals Landslides, sandpiles, and self-organized criticality

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 505-514 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Hergarten

Abstract. Power-law distributions of landslides and rockfalls observed under various conditions suggest a relationship of mass movements to self-organized criticality (SOC). The exponents of the distributions show a considerable variability, but neither a unique correlation to the geological or climatic situation nor to the triggering mechanism has been found. Comparing the observed size distributions with models of SOC may help to understand the origin of the variation in the exponent and finally help to distinguish the governing components in long-term landslide dynamics. However, the three most widespread SOC models either overestimate the number of large events drastically or cannot be consistently related to the physics of mass movements. Introducing the process of time-dependent weakening on a long time scale brings the results closer to the observed statistics, so that time-dependent weakening may play a major part in the long-term dynamics of mass movements.

METOD ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 416-442
Author(s):  
Dmitriy Zhukov

Punctuated equilibrium is regarded as the state of natural and social systems manifested in occasional intense, quick bursts of activity. Within the framework of the theory of self-organized criticality (SOC), punctuated equilibrium can be formalized as pink noise. SOC theory, having been developed by the end of 1980s, was originally intended to explain natural science phenomena. However, soon after its presentation, it began to spread across the social and humanitarian field of knowledge. Critical state is one on the brink of a bifurcation point. It turns out that some systems can stay in a state of permanent choice for a fairly long time. The author presents the examples of punctuated equilibrium revealed in computer experiments with artificial societies, as well as through empirical observation (particularly, in the dynamics of voting patterns, internet activity, and protest movements in the past and present). The key concepts of SOC theory and tools for pink noise identification are laid out. The sandpile model has been given special attention. Certain papers have been analyzed in which SOC theory was applied to gain some political science knowledge. According to SOC, in certain cases, there is no need to search for some significant extraordinary factor to shed light on explosive social transformations (including revolutions and other bursts of social and political activity). Social transformations can be induced by quite ordinary - and thus undistinguished - properties of systems, micro-level pro- cesses, and local impulses. SOC theory, therefore, refocuses the attention of researchers from the search for direct causes of events to the identification of states of the subject that generates these events.


2006 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 409-412 ◽  
Author(s):  
Y. Ida ◽  
M. Hayakawa

Abstract. An extremely large earthquake (with magnitude of 8.2) happened on 8 August 1993 near the Guam island, and ultra-low-frequency (ULF) (frequency less than 1 Hz) electromagnetic fields were measured by 3-axis induction magnetometers at an observing station (with the epicentral distance of 65 km) with sampling frequency of 1 Hz. In order to study electromagnetic signature of prefracture criticality, we have undertaken the fractal (mono-fractal) analysis by means of the Higuchi's method for the ULF data during the 1993 Guam earthquake. Then, it is found that the fractal dimension exhibits five maxima 99, 75, 52, 21, and 9–4 days before the earthquake main shock, which suggests the ULF electromagnetic signature of nonlinear evolution (in the sense of self-organized criticality) taking place in the lithosphere just before the 1993 large Guam earthquake. That is, there take place step-like changes in the lithosphere during the long-term of the order of several months before the main shock.


2002 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 123-137
Author(s):  
R. Šiugždaitė ◽  
S. Norvaišas

In the article we propose new decision support tools for region energetics development. The method is based on analysing complex system’s state and comparing it with the self-organized criticality (SOC) class that characterize the long-term system’s stability. We start with urban system modelling using cellular automata (CA) with the best fit to real data and then we raise hypothesis about adequacy of urban and energetics system elements distribution. The urban data analysis shows that it is in SOC state for wide rank of countries. We calculate required parameters for energetics system, which are used in decision making for the system long-term development.


2002 ◽  
Vol 357 (1421) ◽  
pp. 657-666 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mercedes Pascual ◽  
Manojit Roy ◽  
Frédéric Guichard ◽  
Glenn Flierl

Three different lattice–based models for antagonistic ecological interactions, both nonlinear and stochastic, exhibit similar power–law scalings in the geometry of clusters. Specifically, cluster size distributions and perimeter–area curves follow power–law scalings. In the coexistence regime, these patterns are robust: their exponents, and therefore the associated Korcak exponent characterizing patchiness, depend only weakly on the parameters of the systems. These distributions, in particular the values of their exponents, are close to those reported in the literature for systems associated with self–organized criticality (SOC) such as forest–fire models; however, the typical assumptions of SOC need not apply. Our results demonstrate that power–law scalings in cluster size distributions are not restricted to systems for antagonistic interactions in which a clear separation of time–scales holds. The patterns are characteristic of processes of growth and inhibition in space, such as those in predator–prey and disturbance–recovery dynamics. Inversions of these patterns, that is, scalings with a positive slope as described for plankton distributions, would therefore require spatial forcing by environmental variability.


1999 ◽  
Vol 02 (03) ◽  
pp. 197-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. Alexander Bentley ◽  
Herbert D. G. Maschner

Large-scale patterns of culture change may be explained by models of self organized criticality, or alternatively, by multiplicative processes. We speculate that popular album activity may be similar to critical models of extinction in that interconnected agents compete to survive within a limited space. Here we investigate whether popular music albums as listed on popular album charts display evidence of self-organized criticality, including a self-affine time series of activity and power-law distributions of lifetimes and exit activity in the chart. We find it difficult to distinguish between multiplicative growth and critical model hypotheses for these data. However, aspects of criticality may be masked by the selective sampling that a "Top 200" listing necessarily implies.


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