The century-long development of rock mechanics research: revisited for contemporary subsurface applications

Contemporary subsurface geoenergy and geological storage technologies, including deep geothermal systems, CO2 sequestration, underground hydrogen and helium storage, compressed air energy storage, seasonal thermal energy storage based on hot and cold water, and wastewater disposal, rely on deliberate perturbations of stress and pore pressure in the Earth’s crust. Understanding and managing the subsurface responses induced by these perturbations require a robust theoretical foundation that has evolved alongside nearly a century of research on rock mechanics. This review revisits the historical evolution of these theoretical frameworks, tracing the progression from the continuum descriptions and effective stress law to modern frameworks that emphasize damage accumulation, strain localization/delocalization, and thermo-hydro-mechanical-chemical coupling. By synthesizing laboratory experiments, theoretical developments, and field observations, three central insights emerge: rock deformation, permeability evolution, and seismic response are dynamically coupled; subsurface behavior is inherently structurally heterogeneous and thus scale dependent; and contemporary subsurface operations increasingly require predictive, system-level paradigms rather than descriptive interpretation. These challenges arise from the needs of contemporary subsurface activities and are grounded in the historical evolution of rock mechanics, underscoring the need to integrate multi-physics processes across scales to accommodate increasingly complex reservoir and operational conditions for safe and controllable geoenergy and geological storage systems.