Self-Organization in a Granular Medium by Internal Avalanches
  Internal avalanches of grain displacements can be created inside a granular material kept in a bin in two ways: (i) By removing a radomly selected grain at the bottom of the bin (ii) By breaking a stable arch of grains clogging a hole at the bottom of the bin. Repeated generations of such avalanches lead the system to a steady state. The question asked, is this state a critical state as that in Self-Organized Criticality? We review here some of the recent studies on this problem using cellular automata as well as hard disc models. 
S. S. Manna (Satyendra Nath Bose National Centre for Basic Sciences,   Calcutta)