J. R. Rice addresses problems in the theoretical mechanics of solids and fluids -- that is, problems of stressing, deformation, fracture and flow -- as they arise in seismology, tectonophysics and surficial geologic processes and in civil/environmental engineering hydrology and geomechanics. His earthquake studies focus on the nucleation of rupture, thermo- and hydro-mechanical weakening of fault zones during seismic slip, fracture propagation through branched and offset fault systems, tsunami generation and propagation, and relations among stressing, seismicity and deformation in or near continental and subduction fault systems, including the physics of aseismic deformation transients. In studies of hydrologic processes, poroelastic-plastic effects and other fluid interactions in the deformation and failure of earth materials are addressed, with environmental geomechanics applications to glacial flows, including rapid and episodic ice motions, glacial earthquakes, and massive ice-sheet under-flooding events, to formulating mechanical constraints on subsurface CO2 sequestration, and to submarine and subaerial landslide processes. Work in previous years, which also included a stronger focus on mechanical engineering and materials physics, has addressed the theory of crack propagation in elastic-plastic metals, path-independent integrals in elasticity, the structure of inelastic constitutive relations, microscopic mechanisms of cleavage and ductile or creep rupture, the thermodynamics of interfacial embrittlement, wave effects in tensile crack dynamics, sliding friction and its instabilities, deformation localization into shear zones, and landslides in overconsolidated soil slopes. Contributions have also been made to techniques of computational mechanics, including finite-element and spectral elastodynamic methods.