Dear Colleagues, 

We are pleased to invite you to submit an abstract to the session EMRP1.7 “Laboratory characterization and numerical modelling of soft rocks” for the next EGU GENERAL ASSEMBLY 2025 which will be held in Vienna from April 27 to May 2, 2025.

The session will be convenered by Maria Lia Napoli (from the Department of Structural, Geotechnical and Building Engineering of Torino Polytechnic) and myself (Chiara Caselle, from the Department of Earth Science of Torino University) and will focus on the laboratory characterization and modeling of the thermal-hydraulic-mechanical-chemical (THMC) behaviour of weak/soft rocks and rock masses.

These rocks represent a challenge in several geoengineering contexts, due to their low strength, high heterogeneity, high proneness to drastic weathering or fracturing processes, and to the fact that they can develop time-dependent and water-interaction-dependent deformations (e.g., creep, swelling, squeezing).

Despite these materials raised big attention in the geotechnical and rock mechanics scientific communities in the last decades, several questions remain open about the understanding of the complexity that drives their behaviour, posing risks to the safety and longevity of infrastructures and to the stability of natural slopes and sea cliffs.

For these reasons, this session proposes to collect contributions about the THMC behaviour of soft rocks and rock masses, welcoming laboratory, modeling and case studies topics, with the objective of revealing our capability of effectively characterizing and predicting the behaviour of these materials. We hope that you wish to contribute to the discussion with your research!  

You can find more information at https://meetingorganizer.copernicus.org/EGU25/session/51719 and the attached PDF.

The abstract deadline is January 15th (13:00 CET)!

We look forward to seeing you in Vienna!

Sincerely, 

Chiara and Maria Lia