| 23 Feb 2026
Patterns of crustal stress derived from the World Stress Map database 2025
Abstract. Knowledge of the present-day stress field of the Earth’s crust is essential for understanding geodynamic processes, as well as for the exploration and management of geo-reservoirs. The World Stress Map (WSM) project provides the only open-access global database of crustal stress information. To mark the project’s 40th anniversary, the WSM database has been substantially updated, and now contains more than twice the number of data records on the orientation of maximum horizontal stress (SHmax) in comparison to the previous release in 2016. The new database includes 100,842 quality-ranked data records documenting the SHmax orientation in the Earth’s crust. As stress data records are clustered around plate boundaries and in sedimentary basins, we provide mean SHmax orientation estimates on regular global grids of 2°, 1°, 0.5° and 0.2° to facilitate the analysis of stress patterns. The results reveal that in intraplate regions, where stress data density has increased significantly, the earlier hypothesis that plate boundary forces and relative plate motion primarily control SHmax orientation needs to be revised. SHmax rotates by more than 50° over spatial scales of 50–500 km. Two notable examples include an ~50° rotation of SHmax in the Alpine foreland, from N-S in the East to NNW-SSE in the West, and several SHmax rotations > 50° over distances of less than 100 km in eastern Australia.
The manuscript presents the new release of the World Stress Map database, detailing the updated quality ranking scheme and significant data improvements. The authors also briefly summarize the key stages of the World Stress Map project over the last 40 years. The dataset has doubled in size since the last release. The discussion focuses on stress patterns derived from mean stress orientations on regular grids, a method that facilitates the multi-scale analysis of stress field. The conclusions regarding stress rotations are particularly noteworthy.
The scientific interest is well within the scope of the journal. The authors clearly define their contribution and give proper credit to previous research. The references are both sufficient and of high quality. The paper is well structured and clearly written, the title reflects the content, and the abstract provides a comprehensive summary. In my opinion, the manuscript can be accepted in its current form without further modifications.
Specific comments
I have no further specific comments. I just wonder why the authors used A-C quality data in northern Alps area and A-D quality data in Australia. I guess the choice was due to the amount of data relative to the size of the area. This could be misleading for readers.
Technical corrections
Consider some reorganization of the References. Following the Journal guidelines “Heidbach group” is not listed correctly. Rajabi et al. 2025 should go at the end of the “Rajabi group”. Ziegler et al. 2024 should be at the end of the “Ziegler group”. Also Reiter et al. 2024 should be after Reiter at al. 2014