The unsteady double-diffusive natural convection flow in a rectangular enclosure filled with soft rocks which are subjected to humid air, including water vapor absorption and thermoelasticity, is studied numerically. The high order compact finite difference schemes are adopted for better simulation of this problem, and a Darcy-Brinkman-Forchheimer extended model combined with the absorption and thermoelasticity effects is introduced. The effects of the thermal and solutal Rayleigh numbers, hygroscopicity, Darcy numbers and thermoelasticity on the flow are investigated in detail. Results are presented in the form of streamlines and isolines of temperature and mass fraction as well as the plots of average Nusselt and Sherwood numbers over the walls under different conditions. The flow structure develops from conduction-dominated to steady convection-dominated as increasing Rayleigh number or increasing buoyancy ratio as well as increasing Darcy numbers. The thermoelasticity effects of soft rocks play an important role in the analysis of thermal convection flow by the change of temperature and permeability, while the water vapor absorption effects may have a slight effect on the flow in the beginning and vanish with the absorption effects becoming weak. Nevertheless, the effect may significant reduce the mechanical strength properties of soft rocks. (C) 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.