Agust Gudmundsson holds a University of London Chair of Structural Geology at Royal Holloway. He has a Ph.D. in Tectonophysics from the University of London and has previously held positions as research scientist at the University of Iceland, Professor at the University of Bergen, Norway, and Professor and Chair at the University of Gottingen, Germany. Professor Gudmundsson's research interests include volcanotectonics, seismotectonics, and fluid transport in rock fractures and reservoirs. He has published more than 130 research papers on these and related topics, is on the editorial boards of Terra Nova, Tectonophysics, the Journal of Geological Research, and the Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, and is a fellow of the Iceland Academy of Sciences and Academia Europaea. The book draws on Professor Gudmundsson's extensive experience in field, analytical, and numerical studies of crustal fractures and of teaching undergraduate and graduate courses in structural geology, geodynamics, hydrogeology, rock mechanics, reservoir geoscience, seismotectonics, and volcanotectonics.