Anisotropy is Everywhere, to See, to Measure, and to Model

Anisotropy is everywhere. Isotropy is rare. Round stones are collectors' items, and any almost cubic blocks are photographed, as they are the exception. The reasons for rock masses to frequently exhibit impressive degrees of anisotropy, with properties varying with direction of observation and measurement, are clearly their varied geological origins. Origins may provide distinctive bedding cycles in sedimentary rocks, distinctive flows and flow-tops in basalts, foliation in gneisses, schistosity in schists and cleavage in slates, and faults through all the above. We can add igneous dykes, sills, weathered horizons, and dominant joint sets. Each of the above are rich potential or inevitable sources of velocity, modulus, strength and permeability anisotropy-and inhomogeneity. The historic and present-day stress anisotropy provides a wealth of effects concerning the preferentially oriented jointing, with its reduced roughness and greater continuity. High stress may also have induced oriented micro-cracks. All the above reinforce disbelief in the elastic-isotropic-continuum or intact-medium-based assumptions promoted by commercial software companies and used by so many for modelling rock masses. RQD and Q are frequently anisotropic as well, and Q is anisotropic not just because of RQD. The authors, therefore, question whether the a priori assumption of homogeneous-isotropic-elastic behaviour has any significant place in the scientific practice of realistic rock mechanics.