Rock Physics and Natural Hazards

Natural hazards events such as earthquakes or volcanic eruptions involve activation of coupled thermo-hydro-chemo-mechanical processes in rocks.

The present book assembles unpublished contributions to the 7th Euro-Conference on Rock Physics and Geomechanics, held in 2007 in Erice, Italy. It presents new laboratory data, theoretical and numerical rock physics models and field observations relevant to the study of natural hazards. In particular, several papers are devoted to rock failure and explore the relationship between the competing deformation micro-mechanisms. Several others investigate shear-induced anisotropy of mechanical and/or transport properties, both in large-scale geologic objects and in laboratory samples. The remaining papers treat various aspects of rock physics and their industrial applications such as geothermics and reservoir characterization.

What Does Control Earthquake Ruptures and Dynamic Faulting? A Review of Different Competing Mechanisms.- Quake Catalogs from an Optical Monitoring of an Interfacial Crack Propagation.- Fracture Toughness and Fracture Roughness Interrelationship in Thermally treated Westerly Granite.- Acoustic Emissions Monitoring during Inelastic Deformation of Porous Sandstone: Comparison of Three Modes of Deformation.- Initiation and Propagation of Compaction Bands in Dry and Wet Bentheim Sandstone.- Compaction and Failure in High Porosity Carbonates: Mechanical Data and Microstructural Observations.- Stress Transfer During Pressure Solution Compression of Rigidly Coupled Axisymmetric Asperities Pressed Against a Flat Semi-Infinite Solid.- Common Evolution of Mechanical and Transport Properties in Thermally Cracked Westerly Granite at Elevated Hydrostatic Pressure.- Improved Interpretation of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance T1 and T2 Distributions for Permeability Prediction: Simulation of Diffusion Coupling for a Fractal Cluster of Pores.- Oscillating Flow of a Compressible Fluid through Deformable Pipes and Pipe Networks: Wave Propagation Phenomena.- Microstructural Investigation of Naturally Deformed Leucogneiss from an Alpine Shear Zone (Southern Calabria-Italy).- Laboratory Characterization of Permeability and Its Anisotropy of Chelungpu Fault Rocks.- Axial and Radial Permeability Evolutions of Compressed Sandstones: End Effects and Shear-band Induced Permeability Anisotropy.- Microstructural Inhomogeneity and Mechanical Anisotropy Associated with Bedding in Rothbach Sandstone.- Pressure-dependent Production Efficiency of an Enhanced Geothermal System (EGS): Stimulation Results and Implications for Hydraulic Fracture Treatments.- Impact of Poroelastic Response of Sandstones on Geothermal Power Production.- Permeability Prediction for Low Porosity Rocks by Mobile NMR.