Acoustic emission from periodically perturbed systems: SOC and predictability

The statistics of acoustic emission (AE) from as diverse processes as volcanic activity (Stromboli, Italy) and martensitic transformations driven by thermal cycles, is shown to verify the paradigm of self-organized criticality. However, catastrophic event predictability both in laboratory (the onset of martensitic transformations) and in on-site applications (volcanic seisms and explosions) through the analysis of historical AE series, is not ruled out as long as the emitting samples are subjected to (quasi)periodic low-frequency/large-scale dynamics.