Special issue "Physical and transport properties of fluid-bearing rocks" Preface

Recent advances in geofluid-related studies have created a new organically-bound research filed. High-resolution magnetotelluric (MT) observations revealed that interconnected conductive networks present almost everywhere in the Japan arc crust; this stimulated a broad range of geoscience community to reconsider the fluid distribution in the crust and the role of fluids in generation of earthquakes. This special issue, a part of which is going to be published in theMarch issue, contains reviews of some recent studies including the molecular simulation of bulk and grain boundary water and brines, thermodynamics of interfacial energy that gives an interpretation of experimentally-obtained dihedral angles, constraints on chemical and isotopic signatures of subducted slab-derived fluids from geochemistry of igneous rocks and high-pressure experiments, the basic theory of MT method and its applications, the water solubility in arc magmas, and the "CO₂-fluxing" phenomena recently found in world-wide volcanic systems.