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CREEP, POWER LAW

Diffusion creep breaks down when stress and strain rates are increased sufficiently so that dislocations start to appear in a considerable number inside the individual grains of the creeping material. This is when first dislocation climb and later dislocation glide creep mechanisms are activated. Power law creep is believed to be governed by dislocation climb mechanism. Power law creep makes the deformation easier when the rocks cannot deform in linearly viscous manner. If n=1 in the equation then the material behaves as a Newtonian viscous one.