Chaos, complexity, and disasters

Six examples of typical grid-spanning (percolating) forest fires on a 128 × 128 grid. The red sites represent trees burned in the fire, green sites unburned trees, and white sites are unoccupied.

The study of chaos and complexity is fundamental to our understanding of the short-term dynamics of the Earth. These concepts are pivotal for the prediction and, possibly, control of geological disasters, such as earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and landslides, which leave in their wake the massive collapse of construction as well as socioeconomic and environmental crises. [These studies reside a] At the frontiers of modern mathematics and theoretical physics, these studies have wide applications to emergency management, public safety, civil engineering standards, insurance underwriting, and many economic, social, and political issues.

The science of chaos and complexity considers large systems of elements, which interact in a complicated nonlinear fashion. Such systems sometimes organize themselves, often abruptly, resulting in a disaster. The key to understanding and predicting such systems is a "holistic" approach, beginning from the whole and proceeding to the smallest details. With such an approach, it is sometimes possible to understand the underlying character of a complex system and to establish its collective behavior patterns.

Our faculty and students are members of a broad international community exploring chaotic and complex systems, with the primary focus on the solid Earth. The outstanding scientific questions we investigate relate to the formation of large-scale patterns from interactions on the smallest scales. Of special interest is the emergence of power laws and fractal structure.

Retrospective predictions of three of the largest earthquakes in southern California, including the Kern County (1952), Landers (1992), and Hector Mine (1999) events.		An example of a potentially disastrous landslide is that of the La Clapiere sliding system in the French southern-Alps that started (top) and aborted (bottom) after several years of accelerating sliding, suggesting a potential catastrophic run-off. A slider-block friction theory developed by our faculty classifies different avalanche regimes into velocity-weakening unstable versus velocity-strengthening stable, as a function of rock and sliding surface properties. The (+) are locations of geophysical markers used to monitor the mountain unstability.

More Information

Faculty and Contacts:

Vladimir Keilis-Borok,	Professor in Residence
William Newman,	Professor of Planetary Physics, Astronomy, and Mathematics
Didier Sornette,	Professor of Geophysics