Book excerpt: Petroleum Rock Mechanics: Drilling Operations and Well Design, Second Edition, keeps petroleum and drilling engineers centrally focused on the basic fundamentals surrounding geomechanics, while also keeping them up-to-speed on the latest issues and practical problems. Updated with new chapters on operations surrounding shale oil, shale gas, and hydraulic fracturing, and with new sections on in-situ stress, drilling design of optimal mud weight, and wellbore instability analysis, this book is an ideal resource. By creating a link between theory with practical problems, this updated edition continues to provide the most recent research and fundamentals critical to today's drilling operations. - Helps readers grasp the techniques needed to analyze and solve drilling challenges, in particular wellbore instability analysis - Teaches rock mechanic fundamentals and presents new concepts surrounding sand production and hydraulic fracturing operations - Includes new case studies and sample problems to practice