23Theoretical calculations indicate that elastic stresses induced by surface topography may be 24 large enough in some landscapes to fracture rocks, which in turn could influence slope stability,

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10The organic-inorganic nature of organic-rich source rocks poses several challenges for 11 the development of functional relations that link mechanical properties with geochemical 12 composition. With this focus in mind, we herein propose a method that enables chemo-13 mechanical characterization of this highly heterogeneous source rock at the micron and 14 submicron length scale through a statistical analysis of a large array of Energy Dispersive 15 X-Ray Spectroscopy (EDX) data coupled with nanoindentation data. The ability to 16 include elemental composition to the indentation probe via EDX is shown to provide a 17 means to identify pure material phases, mixture phases and interfaces between different 18 phases. Employed over a large array, the statistical clustering of this set of chemo-19 mechanical data provides access to the properties of the fundamental building blocks of 20 clay-dominated organic-rich source rocks. The versatility of the approach is illustrated 21 through the application to a large number of source rocks of different origin, chemical 22 composition and organic content. We find that the identified properties exhibit a unique 23 scaling relation between stiffness and hardness. This suggests that organic-rich shale 24properties can be reduced to their elementary constituents, with several implications for 25 the development of predictive functional relations between chemical composition and 26 mechanical properties of organic-rich source rocks such as the intimate interplay between 27 clay packing, organic maturity, and mechanical properties of porous clay/organic phase. 28

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