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Size distribution of litospheric plates

G. S. Golitsyn

A. M. Obukhov Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences



Abstract: P.Bird [G1] presented the cumulative area, S, distributions of $N = 52$ plates. After exclusion of 6 continental plates and of three smallest ones he approximated the rest of the plates by power law with exponent $n = -0.33$. The dimensional arguments and hypotheses of Kolmogorov–Obukhov type for turbulence have been already applied to statistical description of granular motions within the fractured solid bodies. The same kind of arguments in this case for the cumulative size distribution of the plates produce the power law with exponent $-\frac{1}{3}$. The examples of real home experiments with size distributions of stochastic polygon areas distributions and of areas of polygonal sizes of broken eggshells are qualitatively supporting our conclusions. Moreover, the numerical prefactor at the Bird's law is found close to 5 supporting the saying by Albert Einstein that in the valid dimensional by derived expressions the numerical coefficients should be of order one, as quoted by P. Bridgman [G2].
\begin{thebibliography}{1} \bibitem{G1} P. Bird, Geohemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems. 2003, V. 4, No. 3. \bibitem{G2} P. Bridgman, Dimensional Analysis, Yale Univ. Press, 1921 and 1932. \end{thebibliography}


© Steklov Math. Inst. of RAS, 2024