Marine transgressions or microbial precipitation: What was the controlling factor of continental margin iron formation deposition? Introduction Iron formations, which can be found around the world today, have great importance as sources of iron and manganese ore, clues about the evolution of life on Earth, and even hints at possible life on Mars (Weber et al., 2006). Precambrian iron formations...

The formulation and existence theory is presented for a system modeling diffusion of a slightly compressible fluid through a partially saturated poroelastic medium. Nonlinear effects of density, saturation, porosity and permeability variations with pressure are included, and the seepage surface is determined by a variational inequality on the boundary.

Exploiting form invariance of a class of elastic – plastic constitutive relations for drained and undrained deformation makes it possible to compare predictions for localization under these limiting conditions. Results are shown to depend strongly on poroelastic constants reflecting the compressibility of solid and fluid constituents and parameters describing inelastic volume strain and the dep...

Murine models of osteoarthritis (OA) and post-traumatic OA have been widely used to study the development and progression of these diseases using genetically engineered mouse strains along with surgical or biochemical interventions. However, due to the small size and thickness of murine cartilage, the relationship between mechanical properties, molecular structure and cartilage composition has ...

Short-term changes in the hydraulic head of surface water bodies are known to influence the shallow response of hydraulically connected groundwaters. Associated with these fluctuations is the physical increase in stream water creating a mechanical load on the ground surface. This load is supported by the geologic materials (sediment or rock) and the pore fluid contained within the pores. Change...

An interesting and useful analogy can be drawn between the equations of static poroelasticity and the equations of thermoelasticity including entropy. The correspondence is of practical use in determining the effective parameters in an inhomogeneous poroelastic medium using known results from the literature on the effective thermal expansion coefficient and the effective heat capacity of a diso...

Two views have dominated recent discussions of the physical basis of cell shape change during migration and division of animal cells: the cytoplasm can be modeled as a viscoelastic continuum, and the forces that change its shape are generated only by actin polymerization and actomyosin contractility in the cell cortex. Here, we question both views: we suggest that the cytoplasm is better descri...