Selected Papers Presented at the 13th EURO-Conference on Rock Physics and Geomechanics—The Guéguen Conference Held on 2–6 September 2019 in Potsdam, Germany

This paper is the editoral of a special issue, that intends to summarize the highlights of the conference programme consisting of 8 keynote lectures, 47 oral presentations and 26 poster presentations given by rock mechanics experts and early career scientists. The programme was divided into the following eight oral presentation sessions: ‘Fluid-driven fractures and seismicity’, ‘Compaction and damage of porous rock I + II’, ‘Laboratory fracture and rock characterization studies’, ‘Poroelasticity and seismicity of reservoir rocks’, ‘Simulation of fractures and faults’, ‘Hydraulic, thermal and mechanical cyclic loading at multiple scales’ and ‘Hydraulic fracturing, hydromechanics and fracture permeability’. The special issue consists of 19 scientific papers which are based on these conference contributions and all of which address different important aspects relevant to the variety of industrial applications outlined above. We want to highlight that rock fracturing and fault activation are two very different processes and that both hard data measured in experiments as well as analytical and numerical models together yield a powerful path to solve industrial and societal challenges associated with the utilization of the subsurface based on scientific evidence.Helmholtz-Zentrum Potsdam Deutsches GeoForschungsZentrum - GFZ (4217