AGU Joint Assembly session: Spatial and temporal fault zone evolution and fluid flow

Dear Colleagues,

We would like to bring your attention to the following session at the AGU Joint Assembly (22-25 May 2007, in Acapulco, Mexico). We encourage all of you to submit an abstract, and please pass this along to anyone who may be interested.

Spatial and temporal fault zone evolution and fluid flow: integrating models, tools and observations.

Faults zones are a key influence on rock mass hydraulic properties, but their permeability and porosity properties may vary both in space and time over several orders of magnitude. As a consequence, faults can behave as either barriers, conduits, or as combinations of both. Understanding how faults are generated over time and space and how they influence the hydraulic properties of a rock mass is therefore of paramount importance to the oil and gas, waste disposal and water resource industries. In particular, establishing an association between faulting and earthquakes provides a great opportunity to investigate the physics of earthquake rupture in the presence of fluids and in the evolution of fault zone permeability. In this session we invite contributions on fluid-induced seismicity, fluid flow simulation in faulted environments, hydro-mechanical models and observations, and field methods to characterise fault zones using both in-situ and indirect methods. The goal of this session is to discuss aspects of hydraulic characterization and genesis of fault zones from different perspectives, tools and scales. The combination of this interdisciplinary approach will contribute to improving our understanding of how faults impact the hydro-mechanical properties of the rock mass.

The abstract deadline is the 1st of March 2007. Please feel free to contact us with any questions. More information is available on: www.agu.org

Looking forward to meeting you in Acapulco

Aderson do Nascimento
Zoe Shipton
Rebecca Lunn