Dissolution, precipitation and chemical reactions between infiltrating fluid and the rock matrix alter the composition and structure of the rock, either creating or destroying flow paths. Strong, nonlinear couplings between the chemical reactions at mineral surfaces and fluid motion in the pores often lead to the formation of large-scale patterns: networks of caves and sinkholes in karst areas, wormholes induced by the acidization of petroleum wells, porous channels created as magma rises through peridotite rocks. Dissolution and precipitation processes are also relevant in many industrial applications: carbon storage or mineralization, oil and gas recovery, sustaining fluid circulation in geothermal systems, the long-term geochemical evolution of host rock in nuclear waste repositories or mitigating the spread of contaminants in groundwater.
With the advent of modern experimental techniques, these processes can now be studied at the microscale, with a direct visualization of the evolving pore geometry, allowing exploration of the coupling between the pore-scale processes and macroscopic patterns. On the other hand, increased computational power and algorithmic improvements now make it possible to simulate laboratory-scale flows while still resolving the flow and transport processes at the pore scale.
We invite contributions that seek a deeper understanding of reactive flow processes through interdisciplinary work combining experiments or field observations with theoretical or computational modeling. We seek submissions covering a wide range of spatial and temporal scales: from table-top experiments and pore-scale numerical models to the hydrological and geomorphological modelling at the field scale.