HIGGS-PALMER Technologies offers finite element mechanical analysis via the leading-edge capabilities of the software SAVFEM*. With an advanced rock plasticity constitutive model allowing strain localization, this large-strain nonlinear code can simulate brittle as well as ductile rock deformation, providing predictions of likely fault patterns or fracture geometry at all scales of investigation. Pore pressure and thermal loads are fully accounted for, and coupled analyses are also possible.