Fatigue = Pole Shift?

This news item at Physical Review Focus:

An asphalt roadway will crack after thousands of trucks pass, even if none is especially heavy. Engineers have long observed that the number of repeated stress cycles before failure is mathematically related to the stress in each cycle. Now in the 7 March Physical Review Letters theorists relate this law to accumulating damage at the microscale.

...Under steady and prolonged stress, microscopic fibers constantly break as they reach their individual damage thresholds, so the material's lifetime is directly connected with the way in which damage accumulates over time.

...reminded me of the pole shift theory of James Bowles:

If enough tension is happening within our planet, and it is constant, then one day something must give, slip or break. Everything that suffers stress will eventually crack. In our planet's case it would be the semi-plastic attachment of the crust to the asthenosphere. The stress would also create heat, and this could be a simple explanation for volcanoes - an outlet valve for all the heat created by the stresses within the earth. Bowles points out that an easy way to break a piece of wire is to bend it backwards and forwards, over and over, until it snaps. The ends of the broken wire will be quite hot - heat being a by-product of stress.

It is the most simple, believable idea I have come across for what might what cause a Pole Shift.