Center overview, mission, and rationale

The Center for Geomechanics and Mitigation of Geohazards (GMG) helps design strategies and technical solutions for safe and economic operations for carbon dioxide (CO2) storage, oil and gas extraction and production, and geothermal heat production. Its mission is to advance the understanding of geomaterials failure in the presence of fluids for industry applications and geohazard mitigation. It leverages cutting-edge modeling, computing, geophysical, and remote-sensing research to better understand how geomaterials fail when subjected to hydromechanical effects (e.g. fluid pumping in or out of the subsurface or slope instabilities induced by ground shaking or rainfall).

Natural hazards such as earthquakes and landslides threaten the safety and economic stability of urban centers, the structural integrity and smooth operation of their interconnected infrastructure systems. These events and the growth and prosperity of fossil-fuel dependent economies depend on:

•  Extracting oil and gas and geothermal resources effectively and efficiently;
•  Diminishing the impact that energy production and consumption has on the climate through CO2 sequestration, utilization, and storage; and,
•  Mitigating the risk posed by natural hazards such as earthquakes and landslides to the infrastructure systems that, in part, transmit and distribute energy resources to the public.

To carry out its research, GMG gathers industry and government stakeholders, and scientists and engineers with diverse expertise spanning geophysics, geology, remote sensing, computational mechanics, fracture mechanics, and applied mathematics.