Stress magnitudes in the crust: constraints from stress orientation and relative magnitude data
The World Stress Map Project is a global cooperative effort to compile and interpret data on the orientation and relative magnitudes of the contemporary in situ tectonic stress field in the Earth's lithosphere. The intraplate stress field in both the oceans and continents is largely compressional with one or both of the horizontal stresses greater than the vertical stress. The regionally uniform horizontal intraplate stress orientations are generally consistent with either relative or absolute plate motions indicating that plate-boundary forces dominate the stress distribution within the plates. Current models of stresses due to whole mantle flow inferred from seismic topography models predict a general compressional stress state within continents but do not match the broad-scale horizontal stress orientations. The broad regionally uniform intraplate stress orientations are best correlated with compressional plate-boundary forces and the geometry of the plate boundaries. -from Authors