Karin Dahmen of Urbana gave a wonderful talk at KITP on similarity between Berkhausen avalanches in magnetic materials and earthquakes. Crackling noise you hear when you pour milk onto the rice crispies, the noise due to switching of magnetic domains, and the avalanches/earthquakes have a lot in common.
KITP archive also has another talk on the same fascinating topic by Karin from 2005.
