François Louchet received an engineering degree at Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Mines (Nancy, France), the "Agrégation" degree in Physics, and a PhD in Solid State Physics. For more than 30 years he has been Professor of Condensed Matter Physics at Grenoble University (Grenoble Institute of Technology). He was also Invited Professor at Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (Switzerland), invited scientist at the Balseiro Institute, Bariloche (Argentina), and at Charles University, Prague (Czech Republic), Guest Scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory (USA), OCMR Distinguished Lecturer at Mc Master University, Hamilton, and Kingston University (Ontario, Canada). He is the secretary of the Data-Avalanche Association, and a member of the European Physical Society and of the French Physical Society. Now retired, he keeps on with his research activity, more particularly on theoretical aspects of instabilities in Physics and Geophysics.

• INTRODUCTION


• SNOW, AN INTRIGUING, COMPLEX AND CHANGEABLE SOLID


• 2.1: From ice to snow


• 2.2: Snow crystals


• 2.3: From snowfalls to snow layers


• 2.4: Snow as a granular medium


• 2.5: Snow as a porous medium: the concept of percolation


• BASICS OF DEFORMATION, FRACTURE AND FRICTION PROCESSES


• 3.1: Deformation of solids


• 3.2: Fracture initiation and extension


• 3.3: Griffith's criterion


• 3.4: The brittle to ductile transition


• 3.5: Coulomb's law of friction


• SLAB AVALANCHE RELEASE: DATA AND FIELD EXPERIMENTS


• 4.1: Geometry and dynamical characteristics


• 4.2: Statistical aspects: scale invariance


• 4.3: The weak layer, starting point for slab avalanche release


• 4.4: Stability and Bridging indexes


• SLAB AVALANCHE MODELING


• 5.1: Old myths and beliefs to shoot down


• 5.2: Basis for modeling


• 5.3: Statistical approach: Playing with cellular


• 5.4: Sliding or sticking?


• 5.5: Slab avalanche release in four steps


• SUPERFICIAL AND FULL-DEPTH AVALANCHES


• 6.1: Loose snow avalanches


• 6.2: Full depth avalanches


• 6.3: Summary


• SNOW AND AVALANCHES IN A CLIMATE WARMING CONTEXT


• 7.1: Climate change


• 7.2: Possible consequences on avalanching


• SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION


• APPENDIX A


• COMPLEXITY AND CRITICAL PHENOMENA


• A1: From simple to complex systems


• A2: Scale invariance and self-organized criticality


• APPENDIX B


• MODELING A FLUID TO SOLID PHASE TRANSITION IN SNOW WEAK-LAYERS.


• B1: A fluid to solid phase transition in healable granular materials


• B2: Application to slab avalanche release


• APPENDIX C


• STABILITY OF A SINTERED WEAK LAYER DISK SURROUNDED BY A RING-SHAPED FLUID WEAK LAYER ZONE