Articles | Volume 17, issue 5
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-17-735-2026
https://doi.org/10.5194/se-17-735-2026
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12 May 2026
Short communication | Highlight paper |  | 12 May 2026

Patterns of contemporary horizontal stress orientation in the Earth's crust derived from the World Stress Map Database 2025

Oliver Heidbach and Mojtaba Rajabi

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Cited articles

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Editorial statement
Solid Earth is excited to announce the publication of the latest 2025 update of the World Stress Map (WSM) Project, marking the 40th anniversary of this ongoing collaboration between academia and industry. The WSM offers a global compilation of the present-day crustal stress field, integrating a broad range of measurement techniques. This dataset continues to serve as a valuable resource for researchers in geodynamics, tectonics, geomechanics, seismic hazards, structural geology, and resource engineering. The WSM is thus an indispensable resource that informs and impacts a global science community. As such, this latest iteration is worthy of being a highlighted paper in our journal.
Short summary
The World Stress Map project provides the only open-access database of crustal stress information. The new global database has been substantially updated, and now contains more than twice the number of data on the orientation of maximum horizontal stress (SHmax). As data are clustered, we provide mean SHmax orientations on different global grids. The results reveal for intraplate areas that the earlier hypothesis that plate boundary forces control the SHmax orientation needs to be revised.
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