Electrical conductivity measurements on a 2D packing of metallic beads have
been performed to study internal rearrangements in weakly perturbed granul
ar materials. Small thermal perturbations lead to large non-Gaussian conduc
tance fluctuations. These fluctuations are found to be intermittent in time
, with peaks gathered in bursts. The distribution of the waiting time Delta
t between two peaks is found to be a power law Delta t(-(1+alpha t)) insid
e bursts. The exponent alpha(t) is independent of the head network, the int
ensity of perturbation and external stress. These bursts are interpreted as
the signature of individual bead creep rather than collective vault reorga
nisations. We propose a simple model giving alpha(t) = 1 - zeta, where zeta
is the roughness exponent of the surface of the beads.