Ice sheets, earthquakes and hydraulic fractures are on the agenda when Professor James R. Rice from Harvard gives Ørsted's autumn lecture entitled "Mechanics on our planet: Ice sheets, Earthquakes, Hydraulic fractures" at Technical University of Denmark. James R. Rice is Professor at Harvard University's School of Engineering and Applied Science and Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences. In recent years his research has focused on earth mechanics and the considerable environmental challenges posed by melting glaciers, earthquakes and landslides.