A comparison of short-circuited streaming potentials in Westerly granite from changes in the rock's volume, shape, saturation, and fracture under unconfined uniaxial compression

An experiment was designed to gain some insight into the phenomena of electrical charge in the uniaxially stressed environment of a sample of Westerly granite. Varying properties of size, shape, saturation, and stress rate of the Westerly granite, a tentative set of physical relationships were measured. For instance, there is a strong suggestion that the amount of acoustic energy released when the sample fractures is proportionately related to the amount of charge that moves into or out of the sample, the net charge, over the period of the experiment. Increasing the concentration of the saturating solution increased the amount of charge that moved into or out of the sample. With all the samples that were dry, more charge move in than out over the period of the experiment. The few samples that were alike in every way before and after they fractured had a difference in charge and acoustic energy by a magnitude of their measured net charge and acoustic energy.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

1999

Author dc:creator

• Jensen, Elizabeth Annah, 1975-

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Frank Dale Morgan and Chris J. Marone.

• Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/54437

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/54437