Compiling and correlating paleostress fields across Central Europe - A paleostress chart for northern Bavaria and adjacent areas

Detailed knowledge on the temporal and spatial distribution of faults and fractures not only reveals the geodynamic and tectonic evolution of the lithosphere. It is also of increasing importance with regard to economic, social, and environmental challenges such as nuclear waste disposal, gas storage, geothermal energy, natural hazards, and mineral resource exploration. In this context reliable data on both timing and kinematics of deformation and their regional impact on faulting and fracture formation provide crucial information to evaluate exploration, storage, and production risks, which in turn stresses the need for comprehensive data on paleostress fields and their influence on deformation, fault reactivation, fluid activity, and hydrothermal mineralization.

In this study we present a first comprehensive approach to compile and visualize information on the crustal paleostress field of Central Europe with a focus on northern Bavaria and adjacent areas. The compilation includes published structural data from kinematic paleostress analyses (e.g. fault-slip analysis, tectonic stylolites) and geo- and thermochronological ages of fracture mineralization and fault activity, respectively. The present compilation comprises structural records from more than 40 studies and age information from more than 100 geo-thermochronological studies. All structural data are categorized according to its tectonic stress regime and quality-ranked for reliability and comparability. The consequent linkage of structural data with thermochronological data wherever possible allows to correlate local paleostress fields and deformation patterns with regional to global tectonic events. As one result, the “Paleostress Chart for Northern Bavaria and adjacent Areas” visualizes the temporal and spatial evolution of several regions in Central Europe together with known tectonic phases, sedimentary unconformities and the plate kinematic framework since the Carboniferous.

This compilation may therefore help to better understand the timing and the spatio-temporal evolution of crustal stress patterns for tectonic events across Central Europe in the context of plate tectonics. 

We aim to supplement and improve existing paleostress models on both, regional, and temporal scale by compiling published and original data. In the long term the database is intended as a continuing compilation where data from all across Central Europe are supposed to be included and refined subsequently.