A present-day tectonic stress map for eastern Asia region

Introduction Tectonically the eastern Asia refers to the region bounded by the following three active tec-tonic zones: in the east the western Pacific subduction zone, including Japan trench, Ryukyu trench and Philippine trench; in the southwest the Himalaya continental collision zone and the Burma-arc-Java-trench subduction zone; in the northwest the Tianshan-Baikal continental defor-mation zone (Figure 6). In the world the eastern Asia is one of the regions with the strongest pre-sent-da…

A present-day tectonic stress map for eastern Asia region

Based on the data of earthquake centroid moment tensor (CMT) solution, P-wave first motion focal mechanism solution and deep hole breakouts, a present-day tectonic stress map for eastern Asia region is compiled. The origi-nal stress data are smoothed for every 200 km 200 km area by taking the average of all stress indicators within each sub-region. The stress map shows the spatial distribution of the orientation of principal stress axes and the stress regimes. An earthquake focal mechanism map for the eastern Asia is also given. The maps of orientation of principal stress axes show that, apart from the strong influence of the collision between the Indian Ocean plate and Eurasian plate, the present-day tectonic stress in eastern Asia is significantly affected by the back-arc extension of the subduction zones. The joint effect of the continental collision at the Himalaya arc and back-arc extension in the Burma arc region may be responsible for the remarkable rotation of the principal stress orientations in southeastern part of the Tibet plateau. The joint action of the collision between the Philippine Sea plate and Eurasian plate at Taiwan Island and the back-arc extension of the Ryukyu arc affect the stress field in eastern part of China. There are no strong earthquakes in the present day in the vast back-arc region of the Java trench subduction zone. The back-arc extension there may create a condition favorable to the southward flow of the lithosphere material in southeastern Asia. In the inner part of the Tibet plateau region, roughly demarcated by the Kunlun mountain, the northern and northeastern part is a broad intracontinental compressive zone, while the southern and southwestern part is generally in a normal-faulting stress state.