Guest Editors:
Dr. Yinlin Ji (GFZ Helmholtz Center for Geosciences, Germany)
Prof. Keita Yoshioka (Montanuniversität Leoben, Austria)
keita.yoshioka@unileoben.ac.at
Dr. Adriana Paluszny (Imperial College London, UK)
Dr. Yves Guglielmi (Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, USA)
Prof. Frédéric Cappa (Université Côte d’Azur, CNRS, France)
frederic.cappa@univ-cotedazur.fr
Background
Extreme weather events are becoming increasingly frequent and intense due to climate change, and thus achieving carbon neutrality becomes an essential goal for the entire world by mid-21st century to deal with the climate crisis and promote a carbon-free economy. Green geoenergy (such as geothermal and natural hydrogen), and various types of geostorage, including surplus heat, hydrogen, compressed air, carbon dioxide, and radioactive waste, offer diverse geosolutions for alleviating anthropogenic climate change. Despite the small volume fraction in the subsurface, fractures and faults, either pre-exiting or human-induced, serve as the primary conduits for fluid flow and reactive transport. Apart from fluid flow, the frictional instabilities of fractures and faults are the major sources of induced seismicity in subsurface activities. In contemporary use of the subsurface, the thermal, hydrological, mechanical, and chemical disturbances and their coupled dynamics should be taken into account. Therefore, understanding the response (e.g., permeability and stability) of fractures and faults to contemporary subsurface activities is crucial for the efficiency and safety of geoenergy and geostorage systems.
Over the past decade, significant progress has been made in advancing the understanding of fractures and faults within the context of contemporary geoenergy and geostorage applications for decarbonization, driven by the increasing emphasis on sustainability. This special issue seeks to showcase the latest developments in the comprehension of fractures and faults with contributions from around the world.
We invite submissions that apply and develop advanced multi-scale tools and methods to address challenges in contemporary subsurface utilization. Contributions should meet the journal's standard requirements, providing fundamental and innovative scientific insights, along with discussions on their implications for enhancing the understanding of geosystems and advancing sustainability.
Topics for this call for papers include but not restricted to:
Instructions for authors
Manuscripts should be submitted through the journal's submission system. Please ensure to select the special issue “MSF2-D” when choosing the article type.
Important dates
Deadline of submission: 01 Sep. 2026
Deadline for revision: 01 Dec. 2026
Deadline for acceptance: 01 Feb. 2027
Date for publication: 01 Jul. 2027