Rock fractures control many of Earth's dynamic processes, including plate-boundary development, tectonic earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and fluid transport in the crust. An understanding of rock fractures is also essential for effective exploitation of natural resources such as ground water, geothermal water, and petroleum. This book combines results from fracture mechanics, materials science, rock mechanics, structural geology, hydrogeology, and fluid mechanics to explore and explain fracture processes and fluid transport in the crust. Basic concepts are developed from first principles and illustrated with worked examples linking models of geological processes to real field observations and measurements. Many additional examples and exercises are provided online, allowing readers to practise formulating and quantitative testing of models. Rock Fractures in Geological Processes is designed for courses at the advanced undergraduate and graduate level but also forms a vital resource for researchers and industry professionals concerned with fractures and fluid transport in the Earth's crust.

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Rock Fractures in Geological Processes

Three-dimensional analyses of slip distributions on normal fault arrays with consequences for fault scaling

A nonlocal continuum model for strain‐softening damage is derived by micromechanics analysis of a macroscopically nonhomogeneous (nonuniform) system of interacting and growing microcracks, using Kachanov's simplified version of the superposition method. The homogenization is obtained by seeking a continuum field equation whose possible discrete approximation coincides with the matrix equation governing a system of interacting microcracks. The result is a Fredholm integral equation for the unknown nonlocal inelastic stress increments, which involves two spatial integrals. One integral, which ensues from the fact that crack interactions are governed by the average stress over the crack length rather than the crack center stress, represents short‐range averaging of inelastic macro‐stresses. The kernel of the second integral is the long‐range crack influence function which is a second‐rank tensor and varies with directional angle (i.e., is anisotropic), exhibiting sectors of shielding and amplification. For l...

Nonlocal Damage Theory Based on Micromechanics of Crack Interactions

General solution for transversely isotropic magneto-electro-thermo-elasticity and the potential theory method

Mesoscale strike-slip faults and damage zones at Marsalforn, Gozo Island, Malta

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M. K. Kassir

Papers

Three-Dimensional Crack Problems

Three-dimensional crack problems : a new selection of crack solutions in three-dimensional elasticity