Real-time Observations of Rock Cracking and Weather Provide Insights into Thermal Stress-Related Processes of Mechanical Weathering.

Abstract:

The environmental conditions (weather and/or climate) that limit or drive mechanical weathering via thermal stress are poorly understood. Here we examine acoustic emission (AE) records of rock cracking in boulders sitting on the ground in humid-temperate (~1 year of data) and semi-arid (~3 years) locations. We compare on-site average ambient daily temperature for days in which cracking occurs to the average temperatures for those dates derived from local climate records. The temperatures characterizing days on which cracking occurs is similar for both stations (range = -10 C to +30 C); where 21% and 73% of cracking occurs on hot days (> 20C) in the humid and semi-arid climates respectively while 17% and 0.1% occurs on very cold days (-8C to -3C). When days during which cracking occurs are compared to climate averages, 81% (NC) and 51% (NM) of all cracking occurs on days with absolute temperature anomalies >1, regardless of the temperature. The proportion of cracking that occurs on anomalously hot or cold days rises to 92% and 77% when the data is normalized to account for uneven sampling of the days with extreme temperatures. In order to determine to what extent this trend holds true in a more complex setting, we examined an existing 100+ year record of rock falls from Yosemite Valley. Preliminary results, although more equivocal, are consistent with the boulder cracking AE data. We examine the AE datasets in the context of our previous numerical modeling of insolation-driven thermal stress in rock and hypothesize that there is an increased potential for fracture on days with extreme temperatures because 1) thermal-stress is dependent on temperature variance from far-field and/or average rock temperatures and 2) that days with climatologically extreme air temperatures result in maximums in such variance. An implication of our results is that environments with extreme weather variability may have higher thermal breakdown rates, including certain locations today and perhaps more as climate changes.