{"paper":{"title":"Fractal Plate Tectonics","license":"","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"cond-mat.stat-mech","authors_text":"D. Sornette (CNRS, UCLA), Univ. Nice, V.F. Pisarenko (Russ. Acad. Sci. Moscow)","submitted_at":"2002-02-19T17:06:55Z","abstract_excerpt":"We analyze in details the statistical significance of the claim by Bird [2002] of a power law distribution of plate areas covering the Earth and confirm that the power law with exponent 0.25 +- 0.05 is the most robust and parsimonious model for all plates, including the very largest plates, when taking into account the constraint that the plates areas must sum up to 4 pi steradians. We propose a general class of fragmentation models that rationalize this observation and discuss the implications for the earth dynamics and the general self-organization of tectonic deformations at multiple scales"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"cond-mat/0202320","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}