For decades, experimental work has contributed significantly to how we understand deformation in the Earth’s lithosphere. While the geological record preserved in natural samples often resembles a snapshot frozen in time, experiments allow us to follow their journey. Experiments provide a unique means of linking processes to products, testing hypotheses, and developing better-informed numerical models, by controlling boundary conditions, isolating key parameters, manipulating materials or observing deformation in real time.
This session’s aim is to bring together experimentalists from across disciplines to explore what experiments can reveal about lithospheric deformation, and foster discussions on identifying and expanding their limitations. We welcome contributions addressing deformation across a broad range of scales (micro- to crustal scale), conditions (brittle to ductile) and strain rates (seismic to aseismic). We particularly encourage the submission of studies that introduce new experimental techniques, bridge scales or disciplines, challenge existing paradigms, combine experiments with observations on natural samples or numerical models, or examine unexpected outcomes.

Not every experiment goes as planned. Yet, failure can be the starting point of some of the most interesting discussions and discoveries. Which processes are impossible or simply too difficult to reproduce? What limitations are imposed by apparatus, materials, or boundary conditions? Where do scaling laws break down? And what can we learn from failed experiments?
Negative results may provide the foundation for important advances. We therefore also invite contributions that look beyond experimental success and share challenges, failures and the insights they reveal.

Our goal is to connect diverse experimental communities, facilitate the exchange of methods and ideas, and create a supportive space for discussing both achievements and setbacks. By fostering dialogue among experimentalists, this session seeks to identify common challenges, open new opportunities for collaboration, and ultimately strengthen the role of experiments in deciphering Earth’s deformation processes.