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How can you be so sure tha tfracturing of soft sediments is so differnt to fracturing of hard sediments? What's your soft sediment model?
The oil industry started deliberately fracturing consolidated sediments about 1950, and unconsolidated ones about 1985. They are very differently. The physics of how they fracture has been modeled very extensively: the journals and procedings of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, which I believe are online but only pay-per-view, probably have a couple of hundred papers dealing with the differences.
And consolidated sediments don't slump like sandpiles do, anyway.