Earthquakes occur as the result of stress redistribution on major fractures in the earth's crust and are also observed as scaled phenomena along grain boundaries and microcracks. Earthquake seismology has significantly contributed to our knowledge of fault processes, but our fundamental understanding of how micro-fractures progressively weaken rocks and how this contributes to macro-deformation processes is far from understood. Recent advances in particulate mechanics now mean fracture processes can be modelled dynamically to study the micromechanics of fracturing in rock. In addition, advances in recording and analysing very high frequency acoustic emissions (AE) allow for detailed examination of microcracking. The paper describes how particle models and AE monitoring techniques can be used in conjunction to test specific hypotheses about natural and induced rock fracture processes at the grain scale. Intermediate scale processes (between laboratory and field studies) are also studied by examining rock fracture in an underground research laboratory. ¿ 2000 American Geophysical Union