Fracture, Friction, and Creep

Understanding and characterizing the deformation of solid media is the key to predicting, e.g., material failure, fracture nucleation and propagation, and fluid migration through reservoirs and caprocks. This research is relevant for earthquake prediction, CO₂ sequestration and getechnical engineering issues. Our researchers aim to understand why and how deformation occurs in complex media of different compositions at different conditions (e.g. different temperatures, stress regimes, and material heterogeneity).