Rock Destruction Mechanisms under the Conditions of Multiple Metastable Defect-Induced States

The stage-wise character of the rock destruction process has been studied with the use of indentation and acoustic emission data and the further analysis of fluctuations in the indentation force and the energy of an acoustic signal. The measured experimental results on indentation and acoustic emission data processing make it possible to establish the correspondence between the types of collective modes in the ensembles of shear defects, the damage clustering effects, and the staged character of the destruction process in a deformation site. A self-similar nature of collective modes is the basis for the interpretation of indentation data, the generalization of results to the scales of the seismic and technogenic events, and the estimation of parameters that characterize the development of a destruction site in the processes of drilling.