Geophysical rock fracture imaging and earthquake process micromechnics

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The study of rock fracture is important in understanding earthquakes and also how microcracks contribute to reducing the strength and changing the behaviour of rock and critical engineering structures such as tunnels, mines, rock slopes, dams and petroleum reservoirs. It is also relevant to understanding and predicting how fractures transport groundwater, oil, gas and waste including toxic and radioactive waste. Currently numerical computer models of rock fracture are so sophisticated that we have numerous alternative methods of simulating behaviour, but we are limited by a critical lack of controlled laboratory data to prove which methods, and in what situations, the computer predictions are valid. This is especially true when we consider hydrological-thermal-mechanical behaviour of fractured rock as coupled processes over extended timescales in 3D. Geophysical imaging, analogous to medical imaging, but using seismic and electrical tomography and acoustic emission (listening to rock fracture), provide powerful techniques to monitor the development of fracture processes and test the numerical simulations. A complementary Canadian Foundation for Innovation Infrastructure grant (Young lead PI) for a "Rock Fracture Dynamics Facility" uniquely integrates this technology to provide a state-of-the-art laboratory for geophysical rock deformation experiments and 3D numerical modelling of rock fracture. This facility, housed at the Lassonde Institute for Engineering Geoscience, University of Toronto, will be used in this research to undertake innovative experiments on rock fracture never before attempted in the laboratory. The proposed research and infrastructure provide an exceptional opportunity for graduate students and post doctoral researchers in rock physics and computational geomechanics and will contribute to the development and training of HQP in Canada.