Earthquakes are caused by the sudden release of energy during the fracture of stressed rock within the Earth's crust. This phenomenon is similar to that which occurs in materials under load, and although they take place on very different scales, these two phenomena - earthquakes in geophysics and damage in structural materials - have similarities. In both cases, there is a release of elastic energy from sources located inside a medium. These are selected papers from special sessions at the 11th International Conference on Fracture, held in Turin in 2005. They provide an outline of topics...

This book presents the relevant consequences of recently discovered and interdisciplinary phenomena, triggered by local mechanical instabilities. In particular, it looks at emissions from nano-scale mechanical instabilities such as fracture, turbulence, buckling and cavitation, focussing on vibrations at the TeraHertz frequency and Piezonuclear reactions. Future applications for this work could include earthquake precursors, climate change, energy production and cellular biology.

A series of fracture experiments on natural rocks demonstrates that the TeraHertz vibrations are able to...