Qinghua Lei1
Carl Steefel2
1Department of Earth Sciences, ETH Zurich, Switzerland
2Energy Geosciences Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA
Coupled processes play an important role in the Critical Zone, contributing to such near-surface phenomena as groundwater-driven alpine deformation, rainfall-induced landslides, karst evolution in limestone strata, water infiltration through the vadose zone, and natural or enhanced weathering. These coupled processes occur in the partially saturated zone between the land surface exposed to the atmosphere and the phreatic zone below the groundwater table. It is of central importance to develop a fundamental understanding of the coupling among different multi-physical processes such as seismic wave propagation, rock mass deformation, unsaturated fluid flow, heat/solute transport, and chemical reaction in this near-surface environment. Also of interest is the topic of negative emission technologies making use of enhanced weathering for the mitigation of atmospheric CO2. We invite studies based on numerical simulations, laboratory experiments, and/or field observations that advance our predictive understanding of coupled processes in the Critical Zone to contribute to this session.