The World Stress Map (WSM) is the global compilation of information on the present-day stress field in the Earth's crust. The current WSM database release 2025 (Heidbach et al., 2025) has 100,842 data records, but the data are unevenly distributed and clustered. To analyse the wavelength of the crustal stress pattern of the orientation of maximum horizontal stress SHmax, we use so-called smoothed stress maps that show the mean SHmax orientation on regular grids. The mean SHmax orientation is estimated using the 77,365 A-C data records from the WSM database release 2025 in the Matlab® script stress2grid v.1.1 (Ziegler and Heidbach, 2019) which is based on the circular statistics of axial data. We use a search radius around the grid point and compute the mean SHmax orientation if at least five data records are within the search radius. The significance of the results is further improved by the weighting of the input data by three different parameters. 1.) Data quality weighting with wQ=1/15 for A-, wQ=1/20 for B-, and wQ = 1/25 for C-quality data. 2.) Inverse distance weighting relative to the grid point. This is based on the assumption that the closer a data record is to a grid point, the more strongly the stress state at the grid point influences that data record. Consequently, the contribution of an individual data record to the SHmax orientation increases with decreasing distance to the grid point. 3.) Minimum distance threshold: Data records located very close to a grid point would be overrepresented by the distance weight. To avoid this, a minimum distance threshold is applied such that all data records within 10% of the search radius are assigned the same weighting coefficient. Using a fixed search radius effectively filters from the SHmax data records the wavelength defined by the chosen search radius and does not resolve rotations of SHmax at smaller spatial scales. We provide 13 global datasets for SHmax calculated with search radii of 500 km, 250km, 100km, and 50 km. For the 500 km and 250 km search all four grids are used on 2°, 1°, 0.5°, and 0.2°. For the 100 km search radius the 1°, 0.5°, and 0.2° grids are used and for the 50 km search radius only the 0.5° and 0.2° grids are applied. Details on the format of the data files with the mean SHmax orientation are provided in the accompanying Readme file. Further details on the WSM database release 2025 are available in the WSM Technical Report 25-01 (Rajabi et al., 2025).
The World Stress Map (WSM) is a global compilation of information on the crustal present-day stress field. It is a collaborative project between academia and industry that aims to characterize the stress pattern and to understand the stress sources. It commenced in 1986 as a project of the International Lithosphere Program under the leadership of Mary-Lou Zoback. From 1995-2008 it was a project of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities headed first by Karl Fuchs and then by Friedemann Wenzel. Since 2009 the WSM is maintained at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences. The WSM database release 2025 contains 100,842 data records within the Earth’s crust. The data are provided in two formats: Excel-file (wsm2025.xlsx) and comma separated fields (wsm2025.csv). Data records with reliable A-C quality are displayed in the World Stress Map (doi:10.5880/WSM.2025.002). Further detailed information on the WSM quality ranking scheme 2025, guidelines for the analysis of borehole logging data, and software for stress map generation and the stress pattern analysis is available at www.world-stress-map.org. The database structure and content is explained in the WSM Technical Report TR 25-01 (https://doi.org/10.48440/wsm.2025.001).
The World Stress Map (WSM) is a global compilation of information on the crustal present-day stress field. It is a collaborative project between academia and industry that aims to characterize the stress pattern and to understand the stress sources. It commenced in 1986 as a project of the International Lithosphere Program under the leadership of Mary-Lou Zoback. From 1995-2008 it was a project of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities headed first by Karl Fuchs and then by Friedemann Wenzel. Since 2009 the WSM is maintained at the GFZ Helmholtz Centre for Geosciences. All stress information is analysed and compiled in a standardized format and quality-ranked for reliability and comparability on a global scale. The stress map displays A-C quality stress data records of the Earth’s crust from the WSM database release 2025 (doi:10.5880/WSM.2025.001). Further detailed information on the WSM quality ranking scheme 2025, guidelines for the borehole logging data, and software for stress map generation and the stress pattern analysis is available at www.world-stress-map.org.
Stress maps show the orientation of the current maximum horizontal stress (SHmax) in the earth's crust. Assuming that the vertical stress (SV) is a principal stress, SHmax defines the orientation of the 3D stress tensor; the minimum horizontal stress Shmin is than perpendicular to SHmax. In stress maps SHmax orientations are represented as lines of different lengths. The length of the line is a measure of the quality of data and the symbol shows the stress indicator and the color the stress regime. The stress data are freely available and part of the World Stress Map (WSM) project. For more information about the data and criteria of data analysis and quality mapping are plotted along the WSM website at http://www.world-stress-map.org. The stress map of Great Britain and Ireland 2022 is based on the WSM database release 2016. All data records have been checked and we added a number of new data from earthquake focal mechanisms from the national earthquake catalog and borehole data. The number of data records has increased from n=377 in the WSM 2016 to n=474 in this map. Some locations and assigned quality of WSM 2016 data were corrected due to new information. The digital version of the map is a layered pdf generated with GMT (Wessel et al., 2019) using the topography of Tozer et al. (2019). We also provide on a regular 0.1° grid values of the mean SHmax orientation which have a standard deviation < 25°. The mean SHmax orientation is estimated using the tool stress2grid of Ziegler and Heidbach (2019). For this estimation we used only data records with A-C quality and applied weights according to data quality and distance to the grid points. The stress map is available at the landing page of the GFZ Data Services at http://doi.org/10.5880/WSM.GreatBritainIreland2022 where further information is provided.
The World Stress Map (WSM) is the global compilation of information on the present-day stress field in the Earth's crust. The current WSM database release 2016 (Heidbach et al., 2016) has 42,870 data records, but the data are unevenly distributed and clustered.To analyse the wave-length of the crustal stress pattern of the orientation of maximum horizontal stress Shmax, we use so-called smoothed stress maps that show the mean SHmax orientation on regular grids. The mean SHmax orientation is estimated with the Matlab® script stress2grid (Ziegler and Heidbach, 2017) which is based on the statistics of bi-polar data. The script provides two different approaches to calculate the mean SHmax orientation on regular grids.The first is using a constant search radius around the grid point and computes the mean SHmax orientation if sufficient data records are within the given fixed search radius. This can result in mean SHmax orientations with a high standard deviation of the individual mean SHmax orientation and it may hide local perturbations. Thus, the mean SHmax orientation is not necessarily reliable for a local stress field analysis.The second approach is using variable search radii and determines the search radius for which the standard deviation of the mean SHmax orientation is below a user-defined threshold. This approach delivers the mean SHmax orientations with a user-defined degree of reliability. It resolves local stress perturbations and is not available in areas with no data or conflicting information that result in a large standard deviation.The search radius starts with 1000 km and is decreased in 100 km steps down to 100 km. Mean SHmax orientation is taken and plotted here for the largest search radius when the standard deviation of the mean SHmax orientation at the individual grid points is smaller than 25°. For the estimation of the mean Shmax we selected the following data: A-C quality data without PBE flag.Furthermore, only data records located on the same tectonic plate as the grid point is used to calculate the mean SHmax orientation. Minimum number of data records within the search radius is n = 5 and data records within a distance of d ≤ 200 km to the nearest plate boundary are not used. Plate boundaries are taken from the global model PB2002 from Bird (2003).Furthermore, a distance and data quality weight is applied; the distance threshold is set to 10% of the search radius. We provide the resulting smoothed stress data for four global grids (0.2°, 0.5°, 1°, and 2° grid spacing) using two fixed search radii (250 and 500 km) and the approach with variable search radii. Details on the format of the data files with the mean SHmax orientation are provided in the 2018-002_readme file.
The stress map of Germany shows the orientation of the current maximum horizontal stress (SHmax) in the earth's crust. Assuming that the vertical stress (SV) is a principal stress, SHmax defines the orientation of the 3D stress tensor; the minimum horizontal stress Shmin is than perpendicular to SHmax. In the stress map the SHmax orientations are represented as lines of different lengths. The length of the line is a measure of the quality of data and the symbol shows the stress indicator and the color the stress regime. Data with E-Quality are shown without additional information as dots on the map. The stress data are freely available and part of the World Stress Map (WSM) project. For more information about the data and criteria of data analysis and quality mapping are plotted along the WSM website at http://www.world-stress-map.org.The German version of the World Stress Map Germany is available via http://doi.org/10.5880/WSM.Germany2016.
The World Stress Map (WSM) database is a global compilation of information on the crustal present-day stress field. It is a collaborative project between academia and industry that aims to characterize the stress pattern and to understand the stress sources. It commenced in 1986 as a project of the International Lithosphere Program under the leadership of Mary-Lou Zoback. From 1995-2008 it was a project of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities headed first by Karl Fuchs and then by Friedemann Wenzel. Since 2009 the WSM is maintained at the GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences and since 2012 the WSM is a member of the ICSU World Data System. All stress information is analysed and compiled in a standardized format and quality-ranked for reliability and comparability on a global scale.The WSM database release 2016 contains 42,870 data records within the upper 40 km of the Earth’s crust. The data are provided in three formats: Excel-file (wsm2016.xlsx), comma separated fields (wsm2016.csv) and with a zipped google Earth input file (wsm2016_google.zip). Data records with reliable A-C quality are displayed in the World Stress Map (doi:10.5880/WSM.2016.002). Further detailed information on the WSM quality ranking scheme, guidelines for the various stress indicators, and software for stress map generation and the stress pattern analysis is available at www.world-stress-map.org.VERSION HISTORY:Version 1.1. (15 June 2019): updated version of the zip-compressed Google Earth .kml (wsm2016_google.zip) with a new URL of the server.
The Stress Map of the Mediterranean and Central Europe 2016 displays 5011 A-C quality stress data records of the upper 40 km of the Earth’s crust from the WSM database release 2016 (Heidbach et al, 2016, http://doi.org/10.5880/WSM.2016.001). Focal mechanism solutions determined as being potentially unreliable (labelled as Possible Plate Boundary Events in the database) are not displayed. Further detailed information on the WSM quality ranking scheme, guidelines for the various stress indicators, and software for stress map generation and the stress pattern analysis is available at www.world-stress-map.org.
Die Spannungskarte Deutschland zeigt die Orientierung der gegenwärtigen maximalen horizontalen Spannung (SHmax) in der Erdkruste. Unter der Annahme, dass die vertikale Spannung (SV) eine Hauptspannung ist, legt SHmax die Orientierung des 3D Spannungstensors festgelegt; die minimale horizontale Spannung Shmin ist entsprechend senkrecht zu SHmax. In der Spannungskarte sind die SHmax Orientierungen als Linien unterschiedlicher Länge dargestellt. Die Länge der Linie ist dabei ein Maß für die Datenqualität und das Symbol zeigt die Methode und die Farbe das Spannungsregime an. Daten mit E-Qualität sind ohne weitere Information als Punkte in der Karte dargestellt. Die Spannungsdaten sind frei zugänglich und Bestandteil des World Stress Map (WSM) Projektes. Weitere Informationen zu den Daten und Kriterien der Datenanalyse und Qualitätszuordnung befinden sich auf der WSM Internetseite unter http://www.world-stress-map.org. The English version of the World Stress Map Germany is available via http://doi.org/10.5880/WSM.Germany2016_en.
The stress map of Iceland shows the orientation of the current maximum horizontal stress (SHmax) in the earth's crust. Assuming that the vertical stress (SV) is a principal stress, SHmax defines the orientation of the 3D stress tensor; the minimum horizontal stress Shmin is than perpendicular to SHmax. In the stress map the SHmax orientations are represented as lines of different lengths. The length of the line is a measure of the quality of data and the symbol shows the stress indicator and the color the stress regime. Data with E-Quality are shown without additional information as dots on the map. The stress data are freely available and part of the World Stress Map (WSM) project. For more information about the data and criteria of data analysis and quality mapping are plotted along the WSM website at http://www.world-stress-map.org.
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