Thermal influences on spontaneous rock dome exfoliation

Brian D. Collins (), Greg M. Stock, Martha-Cary Eppes, Scott W. Lewis, Skye C. Corbett and Joel B. Smith
Additional contact information
Brian D. Collins: U.S. Geological Survey
Greg M. Stock: Yosemite National Park
Martha-Cary Eppes: University of North Carolina - Charlotte
Scott W. Lewis: Condor Earth Technologies, Inc.
Skye C. Corbett: U.S. Geological Survey
Joel B. Smith: U.S. Geological Survey

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-12

Abstract: Abstract Rock domes, with their onion-skin layers of exfoliation sheets, are among the most captivating landforms on Earth. Long recognized as integral in shaping domes, the exact mechanism(s) by which exfoliation occurs remains enigmatic, mainly due to the lack of direct observations of natural events. In August 2014, during the hottest days of summer, a granitic dome in California, USA, spontaneously exfoliated; witnesses observed extensive cracking, including a ~8000 kg sheet popping into the air. Subsequent exfoliation episodes during the following two summers were recorded by instrumentation that captured—for the first time—exfoliation deformation and stress conditions. Here we show that thermal cycling and cumulative dome surface heating can induce subcritical cracking that culminates in seemingly spontaneous exfoliation. Our results indicate that thermal stresses—largely discounted in dome formation literature—can play a key role in triggering exfoliation and therefore may be an important control for shaping domes worldwide.

Date: 2018
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02728-1 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:9:y:2018:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-017-02728-1

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-02728-1

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().