Evolutionary nature of destruction of solids and media

The mechanical response of solids and media to loading is considered as their evolution under external applied forces, during which self-organization takes place in the loaded materials and media. The destruction of indiscriminately all solids and media is shown to evolve by a common evolution scenario giving rise to the formation of a hierarchy of block structures in them. The destruction process is statistically strictly ordered. It starts from the lattice scale and proceeds up to the size of tectonic plates in geomedia. The criterion of universal fractal divisibility of solids and media is found and justified experimentally and theoretically. It is demonstrated that the Ltders fronts, fracture waves and slow deformation fronts in geomedia comprise a special class of movements, so-called “slow movements”, in nonlinear media and materials. This class of movements represents the collective processes in a loaded nonlinear medium and results from self-organization in this medium.