Earth materials including rocks and sediment show a frictional response that is rate-dependent, contains a memory of loading history, and demonstrates healing with shear and time. The commonly accepted framework among geophysicists for modeling this frictional behavior is known as “Rate and State-dependent Friction”, or RSF. Constitutive laws for RSF friction are largely empirical, and none proposed thus far adequately describes the full range of laboratory observations. In this talk, I will discuss the extent to which laboratory observations of rock friction in different slip histories that are thought to be relevant to plate tectonics can be modeled by granular friction and be explained as a granular phenomenon.

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I am currently working on several outstanding problems in Earth and planetary sciences that can benefit from advances in soft condensed matter physics, granular physics and complex fluids rheology. My most recent interests include rock friction and earthquake physics, sediment transport and planetary surface processes, processes of orogeny and plate tectonics.