Stress Map of Great Britain and Ireland 2022

Cite as:

Kingdon, Andrew; Williams, John; Fellgett, Mark; Rettelbach, Naomi; Heidbach, Oliver (2022): Stress Map of Great Britain and Ireland 2022. GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences. https://doi.org/10.5880/WSM.GreatBritainIreland2022

Status

I N R E V I E W : Kingdon, Andrew; Williams, John; Fellgett, Mark; Rettelbach, Naomi; Heidbach, Oliver (2022): Stress Map of Great Britain and Ireland 2022. GFZ German Research Center for Geosciences. https://doi.org/10.5880/WSM.GreatBritainIreland2022

Abstract

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.

Additional Information

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 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.

Authors

Kingdon, Andrew;British Geological Service BGS
Williams, John;British Geological Service BGS
Fellgett, Mark;British Geological Service BGS, Keyworth, UK
Rettelbach, Naomi;Institute Geoscienes, University of Potsdamica, Taiwan; Earthquake- Disaster & Risk Evaluation and Management Center, National Central University, Taoyuan, Taiwan
Heidbach, Oliver;GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences, Potsdam, Germany