Daily Thermal Cycling Reveals Acousto-Elasticity and Slow Dynamics in a Fractured Limestone Cliff
Abstract
Near-surface rocks exhibit pronounced nonlinear elastic behavior under natural environmental forcing, yet the interplay between instantaneous acousto-elasticity and transient slow dynamics remains poorly quantified in-situ. We conducted a twoyear acoustic monitoring campaign on a fractured limestone cliff to investigate pathspecific diurnal variations in relative wave velocity (dv/v). Observations are interpreted using a phenomenological state-variable model that combines a stressdependent acousto-elastic (AE) response with a rate-dependent slow dynamics (SD) term, driven by transient thermo-mechanical finite-element simulations. Diurnal dv/v-cycles show pronounced spatial variability, with peak-to-peak amplitudes ranging from 4 % along fracture-intersecting paths to 12 % in compact rock. The model successfully captures characteristic velocity drops during both morning heating and evening cooling, supporting a strain-rate-dependent softening mechanism independent of the sign of deformation. Inferred parameters suggest that macroscopic fractures amplify slow dynamics contributions and reduce stress sensitivity compared to compact rock. These results demonstrate that path-specific acoustic monitoring can resolve spatial variations in internal structural state, eventually providing a sensitive tool for the remote assessment of rock mass integrity.
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BibTeX
@misc{starke2026daily,
title = {{Daily Thermal Cycling Reveals Acousto-Elasticity and Slow Dynamics in a Fractured Limestone Cliff}},
author = {Juliane Starke and Romain Rousseau and Laurent Baillet and Christoph Sens-Schönfelder and Eric Larose},
howpublished = {HAL},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05753786v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-SA 4.0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Daily Thermal Cycling Reveals Acousto-Elasticity and Slow Dynamics in a Fractured Limestone Cliff
AU - Juliane Starke
AU - Romain Rousseau
AU - Laurent Baillet
AU - Christoph Sens-Schönfelder
AU - Eric Larose
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/17
PB - HAL
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05753786v1
AB - Near-surface rocks exhibit pronounced nonlinear elastic behavior under natural environmental forcing, yet the interplay between instantaneous acousto-elasticity and transient slow dynamics remains poorly quantified in-situ. We conducted a twoyear acoustic monitoring campaign on a fractured limestone cliff to investigate pathspecific diurnal variations in relative wave velocity (dv/v). Observations are interpreted using a phenomenological state-variable model that combines a stressdependent acousto-elastic (AE) response with a rate-dependent slow dynamics (SD) term, driven by transient thermo-mechanical finite-element simulations. Diurnal dv/v-cycles show pronounced spatial variability, with peak-to-peak amplitudes ranging from 4 % along fracture-intersecting paths to 12 % in compact rock. The model successfully captures characteristic velocity drops during both morning heating and evening cooling, supporting a strain-rate-dependent softening mechanism independent of the sign of deformation. Inferred parameters suggest that macroscopic fractures amplify slow dynamics contributions and reduce stress sensitivity compared to compact rock. These results demonstrate that path-specific acoustic monitoring can resolve spatial variations in internal structural state, eventually providing a sensitive tool for the remote assessment of rock mass integrity.
ER -