One of the most common types of geological complications arising when drilling wells through permafrost rocks is the violation of wellbore integrity due to changes in the natural stress state of the surrounding massif. Securing the wellbore walls with casing requires switching to a smaller drilling diameter, and the use of grouting materials for grouting fractured rocks is ineffective, since cracks are usually filled with ice, preventing the penetration of grouting material into them.

Sedimentary rocks usually have a layered structure, and the strength characteristics at the contacts of layers (cohesion s_k and angle of internal friction φ_k ) can vary from zero to their values in the material of the layer (c_m and φ_m ).

Structural weakening of rocks is currently studied in different aspects. The diversity of the tasks involved determines a large number of research methods. Most of them provide only an indirect assessment of the weakening of the massif and do not give quantitative dependencies of the influence of weakening of rocks on their strength and deformation characteristics in the conditions of natural occurrence.