Concept

Joint (geology)

Related publications (40)

To break or not to break: The role of secondary mineralisation on joint reactivation in sandstone

Alexandra Roma Larisa Kushnir, Michael Heap

Discontinuities, including fractures and joint sets, modify the fluid transport properties and strength of rock masses. While open fractures and joints increase rock mass permeability and decrease rock mass strength, fluid flow within these structures can ...

2023

Reactivating sealed joints: rock strength reduction and permeability enhancement … sometimes

Alexandra Roma Larisa Kushnir, Michael Heap

Rock masses are often criss-crossed by generations of discontinuities, including veins, fractures, and joints. The presence of fractures and joints can increase rock mass permeability and decrease rock mass strength. However, fluid flow within rock masses ...

2023

Three-dimensional hydraulic fracture propagation in homogeneous and heterogeneous media

Carlo Peruzzo

Hydraulic fractures are tensile fractures that occur in solid materials due to the natural intrusion or anthropogenic injection of a viscous fluid into a fracture channel. The deliberate creation of hydraulic fractures is part of an industrial technology h ...

EPFL2023

Reactivation of variably sealed joints and permeability enhancement in geothermal reservoir rocks

Alexandra Roma Larisa Kushnir, Michael Heap

Hydraulic stimulation of enhanced deep geothermal reservoirs commonly targets pre-existing joint networks with the goal of increasing reservoir permeability. Here, we study the permeability and strength of joint-free and jointed Buntsandstein sandstones fr ...

2023

Physical characterization of fault rocks within the Opalinus Clay formation

Marie Estelle Solange Violay, Christophe Nussbaum, Luis Felipe Orellana Espinoza

Near-surface disposal of radioactive waste in shales is a promising option to safeguard the population and environment. However, natural faults intersecting these geological formations can potentially affect the long-term isolation of the repositories. Thi ...

2022

Hydraulic fracture growth in quasi-brittle materials

Dong Liu

Hydraulic fracturing is a technique often used in the oil and gas industry to enhance the production of wells in low-permeability reservoirs. It consists of fluid injection at a sufficiently large injection rate to create and propagate tensile fractures in ...

EPFL2021

Hydraulic fracturing involves injecting water under high pressure into the bedrock formation to enhance permeability of deep geo-reservoirs. Faults are planar discontinuities cutting the reservoirs, and their reactivation during injection depends of their ...

2020

Rock strength properties of granitic rocks in Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, California

Federica Sandrone, Michel Jaboyedoff

Yosemite National Park, located in the central part of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains, is a glacially carved landscape filled with iconic rock formations such as Cathedral Peak, El Capitan, and Half Dome. Igneous rocks, consisting primarily of variat ...

U.S. Geological Survey2020

Transmissivity of rock fractures: Normal loading and shear reactivation

Monia Woehner

Enhanced Geothermal Systems represent a major field of study in the context of renewable energy resources. To create extractable energy from those reservoirs, a high enough fluid flow rate for production needs to be achieved. This fluid flow rate is direct ...

2020

Tectonic faults typically break in a single rupture mode within the range of styles from slow slip to dynamic earthquake failure. However, in increasingly well-documented instances, the same fault segment fails in both slow and fast modes within a short pe ...

AMER GEOPHYSICAL UNION2020

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