Wenzhuo Cao, Imperial College London, United Kingdom [email protected] Qinghua Lei, ETH Zurich, Switzerland [email protected]
The global efforts of achieving net zero emissions are driving a surge in demand for critical mineral resources that are essential for the shift towards renewable energy sources. Mineral resources exploitation involves underground engineering practices such as mining operations and underground excavations at ever increasing working depths. In such processes, subsurface fractured rocks around underground openings experience complicated hydromechanical interactions resulting in reactivation of natural fractures and initiation of engineering-induced fractures, in particular under unfavourable hydrogeological conditions and strong engineering perturbations such as drilling, blasting, and mining operations. These hydromechanical interactions and fracture behaviour may cause a range of hazards, such as water inrush, gas outbursts, fault slippage, and induced seismicity, which significantly threaten the safety and sustainability of mineral resources exploitation. Understanding the processes of fluid flow, stress transfer, hydromechanical interactions, and fracture initiation/reactivation in rocks under complex hydrogeological and engineering conditions is crucial for mitigating these hazards. This session welcomes contributions encompassing theoretical analyses, laboratory experiments, numerical simulations, and in-situ observations that advance the understanding of hydromechanical interactions relevant to seismic hazards in mineral resources exploitation.