Geodesy and Geodynamics 11 (2020) 468e473

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Geodesy and Geodynamics

journal homepage: http://www.keaipublishing.com/geog

An improved gravity method to horizontal tectonic stresses and its

applications in Tibet
Chuang Xu a, b, *, Hangtao Yu a, Chaolong Yao c, Jinbo Li a, Jianguo Yan b
a
Department of Surveying Engineering, School of Civil and Transportation, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006, China
b
State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing, Wuhan University, Wuhan, 430079, China
c
College of Natural Resources and Environment, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou 510642, China

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: It is significant for identifying mass movement patterns to invert horizontal tectonic stresses at different
Received 26 June 2020 depths underneath Tibet. In recent years, a large number of achievements focusing on two-dimensional
Accepted 13 October 2020 tectonic stresses have been obtained from gravity data. However, three-dimensional tectonic stresses in
Available online 26 October 2020
Tibet are still unknown or debatable. Therefore, in the present study an improved method to multilayer
horizontal tectonic stresses using gravity observations is developed. The inverted multilayer horizontal
Keywords:
tectonic stresses are in agreement with those from previous studies. In addition, rich tectonic structure
Gravity
and development can be revealed from the inverted multilayer horizontal tectonic stresses: (1) the
Horizontal tectonic stresses
Tibet
distribution of horizontal tectonic stresses at various depths shows strong correlation with that of the
Multilayer tectonic elements, where major faults and earthquake epicenters are corresponding with stress highs
and the stable basins are consistent with stress lows. (2) the mass movement patterns of whole Tibet
present clockwise, and the material movement directions in the west and east are approximately south-
north and east-west, respectively. (3) in eastern Tibet, the eastward materials caused by the south-north
extrusion between Indian and Eurasian plates are divided into two parts by the stable Sichuan Block, one
flowing nearly southeast and the other moving almost northeast. The inverted multilayer horizontal
tectonic stresses may provide direct evidences for mass movement patterns in Tibet.
© 2020 Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration, etc. Production and hosting by Elsevier
B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND
license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

1. Introduction approximately 50 million years ago (Ma) [5,6]. At present, it is one

Determining horizontal tectonic stresses (HTS) is helpful in
understanding material movement pattern, which is significant for
revealing tectonic structure and development in the Earth interior
[1e4]. Tibetan Plateau (TP), known as “the roof of the world”, has
undergone complex geological tectonic movement since
* Corresponding author. Department of Surveying Engineering, School of Civil
and Transportation, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou 510006,
China.
E-mail address: chuangxu@gdut.edu.cn (C. Xu).
Peer review under responsibility of Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake
Administration.
Production and Hosting by Elsevier on behalf of KeAi
of the most active areas on Earth and is referred to as the golden key
to reveal plate tectonics, continental collisions, orogeny, etc. [7,8].
Nevertheless, the mass transportation pattern underneath TP is still
debatable until now [9,10]. Hence, inverting multilayer HTS in TP
may improve the knowledge of mass movement pattern.
The major sources of HTS include mantle convection, plate
subduction, density inhomogeneity, etc. [11e13]. Mantle convec-
tion and plate subduction cause primarily large-scale HTS acting on
the whole plate [14e16]. In contrast, density inhomogeneity pro-
duces small-scale or local HTS within the plate, which are usually
determined by gravity observations [17,18]. In the past few years,
many scholars have investigated tectonic stresses using gravity
data and a mass of achievements have been obtained. McNutt [19]
discussed the state of stresses in the crust and upper mantle based
on global gravity field. You [17] showed approximate formulas for
the conversion of gravity field into HTS. Ghosh et al. [11] gave
stresses in TP using gravitational potential energy per unit area
(GPE). Similarly, Ghosh et al. [12] presented global stress field of

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.geog.2020.10.001
1674-9847/© 2020 Institute of Seismology, China Earthquake Administration, etc. Production and hosting by Elsevier B.V. on behalf of KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. This is
an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
 C. Xu et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics 11 (2020) 468e473 469

lithosphere from GPE. Schmalholz et al. [13] explained the rela- Relative to the mantle, the total horizontal component Dgh of
tionship between stresses and GPE. Eshagh and Tenzer [20] pro- gravity anomaly Dg on the geoid caused by the block is approxi-
posed a new method of computing horizontal components for sub- mately (The curvature of the Earth is neglected) [17,22].
crustal stresses using gravity field model and crustal model. How-
ever, all approaches in these publications aforementioned above Dgh ¼  2pGdðrm  rc Þ (6)
can't be used to invert three-dimensional HTS.
Therefore, in this paper an improved method is developed to where G ¼ 6:673  1011 Nm2 =kg2 is the gravitational constant.
estimate the three-dimensional HTS in the crust and upper mantle. Combined with Eqs. (5) and (6), then
Firstly, the completed Bouguer gravity anomaly is decomposed by
wavelet multi-scale analysis. Secondly, the corresponding depths of g rc Dgh
Dsxx ¼ (7)
decomposed gravity anomalies are estimated using power spec- 4pGrm
trum analysis. Lastly, the HTS at different depths are inverted. To
validate this method, it is applied to invert multilayer HTS in TP, in which
whose results are compared with those from Global Positioning qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
System (GPS), earthquake focal mechanism and stress measure- Dgh ¼ Dgx 2 þ Dgy 2 (8)
ment provided by previous studies.
where Dgx and Dgy are the north-south and east-west horizontal
2. Methodology components of Dg, respectively. They can be determined by [23].

ð þ∞
þ∞ ð  
2.1. Traditional gravity method 1 xp  X Dgz
Dgx ¼  h 2  2 i3=2 dXdY
2p
Under the condition of hydrostatic equilibrium, the lithostatic ∞ ∞ X  xp þ Y  yp
pressure P in the Earth interior is proportional to the depth T 
 (9)
[17,21]. ð þ∞
þ∞ ð yp  Y Dgz
1
Dgy ¼  h 2  2 i3=2 dXdY
2p
P ¼ sxx ¼ syy ¼ szz ¼ rgT (1) ∞ ∞ X  xp þ Y  y p

where sxx and syy are both the horizontal lateral pressures, szz is in which Dgz is the vertical component of Dg (In reality, Dgz is equal
the vertical pressure, r denotes the rock density, and g represents to Dg), ðX; YÞ is the coordinate of integration points, and ðxp ; yp Þ is
gravitational acceleration. the coordinate of compute points. Therefore, the direction of Dsxx is
According to the isostasy, the blocks of the crust are floating
over the mantle. Assuming that the thickness of the block is d and Dgy
a ¼ arctan (10)
the immersion depth of the block into the mantle is h, thus the Dgx
buoyancy Fb ¼ rm gh at the bottom of the block is equal to the
vertical pressure Fp ¼ szz ¼ rc gd. Hence, In this way, the mean HTS and their directions can be deter-
mined. This method constructs the relation between gravity and
rm h ¼ rc d (2) HTS. However, it can't provide three-dimensional results. Hence, it
needs to be improved further.
in which rm and rc are the density of the mantle and the crust,
respectively. Based on the principle of equilibrium, in the hori- 2.2. Improved gravity approach
zontal direction
Gravity anomaly Dg on the geoid contains the effects from
Fm ¼ Fc þ Fs (3)
anomalous materials of the whole Earth. To determine HTS at
Rh Rd Rd different depths, a suitable separation method should be employed
where Fm ¼ 0 rm gzdz, Fc ¼ 0 rc gzdz and Fs ¼ 0 Dsxx dz are lateral to decompose the gravity anomaly. In this paper, wavelet multi-
force caused by mantle, lateral lithostatic force from the crust and scale analysis is adopted duo to its successful applications on
HTS, respectively. Dsxx denotes the mean HTS of the crust, whose decomposition of potential data [10,18,24e26]:
source is primarily density inhomogeneity. Subsequently, Eq. (3)
can be reduced to X
S
Dg ¼ AS þ Ds (11)
1   s¼1
Dsxx ¼ g rm h2  rc d2 d (4)
2
in which
Inserting Eq. (2) into Eq. (4), then

g rc dðrm  rc Þ
Dsxx ¼  (5)
2rm

8 XX 9
>
> AS ¼ mS;k;l fS;k ð4ÞfS;l ðlÞ >
>
< k2Zl2Z
=
XX XX XX (12)
> >
s;k;l js;k ð4Þjs;l ðlÞ þ s;k;l js;k ð4Þfs;l ðlÞ þ s;k;l fs;k ð4Þjs;l ðlÞ ;
>
: Ds ¼ nHH nLH nHL >
k2Zl2Z k2Zl2Z k2Zl2Z
470 C. Xu et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics 11 (2020) 468e473

where AS and Ds are respective wavelet approximation and wavelet
detail, S is the maximum decomposed order, and ð4; lÞ is geodetic
latitude and longitude. m and n are coefficients. f and j are scaling
function and wavelet function, respectively. AS denotes low-
frequency signal caused by the deep anomalous materials and it
is often removed to investigate the structure of the crust and upper
mantle. Ds ðs ¼ 1; 2; /; SÞ are high-frequency signals reflecting the
distribution of shallow mass at different depths. Subsequently,
their source depths hs of Ds ðs ¼ 1; 2; /; SÞ can be determined by
power spectrum analysis [26,27]:
D lnPK
hs ¼ ðs ¼ 1; 2; /; SÞ
4pDK
where DlnPK and DK are rates of change for lnPK and the radial
wave number K, respectively. lnPK is the logarithmic power spec-
trum of Ds .
Using the estimated hs ðs ¼ 1; 2; /; SÞ, the crust and upper
mantle can be layered into S spherical shells and the thickness of
the sth shell is Drs . Then, each shell is gridded at D4 and Dl in-
tervals along 4 and l using spherical tesseroids. After that, the
density rs of spherical tesseroids for each layer can be inverted from
corresponding Ds using Tikhonov regularization method [26].
Considering the curvature of the Earth, Eq. (6) can be written as
Dgh ¼  4pGdðrm  rc Þ. Then, the Eq. (7) is also modified. Based
on this improvement, the average HTS ss of each shell is
grs Dsh
ss ¼
8pGrm
where Dsh is the total horizontal gravity anomaly. Using Eq. (8), it
can be determined from the two horizontal components Dsx and
Dsy
qffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
Dsh ¼ Dsx 2 þ Dsy 2
in which Dsx and Dsy can be obtained from Ds by (refer to Eq. (9))
movement derived from GPS presents clockwise pattern (see Fig. 1
[31]), which also reflects the complex distribution of HTS. In the
west (longitude < 95 E), the direction of surface movement is
nearly north-south, while it becomes approximately east-west in
the east (longitude > 95 E). In addition, there are several major
faults (F1eF6) along the boundaries of blocks, indicating huge HTS
existing in these zones.
In the present study, the completed Bouguer gravity anomaly Dg
on the geoid is extracted from WGM2012 Earth's gravity anomaly
model, which has a high spatial resolution of 20 by 20 . The more
details of WGM2012 can refer to Balmino et al. [32]. The Bouguer
gravity anomaly with high spatial resolution is helpful in obtaining
(13)
more refined HTS. Dg ranges from 529 mGal to 199 mGal (see
Fig. 2). Such wide change range indicates strong density in-
homogeneity in the Earth interior, demonstrating that the magni-
tude of HTS may be large. The major faults are primarily located in
the gravity high-low gradient belts, which is consistent with high
tectonic stress. Dg reflects the superposition of all anomalous
bodies in the Earth. To obtain HTS at various depths, it should be
further decomposed.
4. Results and discussions
Dg (Fig. 2) is decomposed into Ds using Eq. (11) with j ¼ Coif3
as the wavelet base function after many experiments. The radially
averaged logarithm power spectrum of decomposed gravity
anomalies Ds is computed by Eq. (13), and the estimated source
(14)
depths hs are listed in Table 1. The maximum decomposed order S is
set as six because the source depth of the 6th order wavelet detail
(h6 ¼ 130 km) has reached the upper mantle.
Based on the estimated mean source depths hs (Table 1), the crust
and upper mantle are layered into S ¼ 6 spherical shells (Table 2).
The thicknesses Drs of the 6 layers are 6 km, 4 km, 20 km, 40 km,
(15) 40 km and 40 km, respectively. Subsequently, each layer is gridded at
D4 ¼ 0:5 and Dl ¼ 0:5 intervals along 4 and l. The multilayer

ð þ∞
þ∞ ð  
1 4p  4 Ds
Dsx ¼ 
2p h 2  2 i3=2 d4dl
∞ ∞ 4  4p þ l  lp
(16)
ð þ∞
þ∞ ð  
1 lp  l Ds
Dsy ¼
2p h 2  2 i3=2 d4dl
∞ ∞ 4  4p þ l  lp

The direction of ss corresponds to that of Dsh , which is defined

as (based on Eq. (10))

Dsy
as ¼ arctan (17)
Dsx
Therefore, the magnitudes and directions of mean HTS at
different depths can be obtained from Eqs. (14) and (17). To verify
the correctness and effectiveness of this method, it is applied to
determine the multilayer HTS underneath TP.

3. Tectonic outline and Bouguer gravity anomaly in TP
The average elevation of TP is over 4 km as a result of the long-
term convergence between the northward subducting Indian Plate
and stable Eurasian Plate since the Eocene epoch [28e30]. Topog-
raphy is primarily maintained by stress differences within the Earth
[19]. Thereby, the rugged terrain and high altitude in TP imply that
the HTS in this area are huge and complicated. The surface
Fig. 1. Tectonic outline of TP overlaying on topography. Blue vectors are GPS velocity
field of crustal motion in the TP relative to the stable Eurasia. The black dashed lines,
black solid lines and white lines are bordering sutures, major active faults and national
borders, respectively. Key to symbols: HB, Himalayan Block; LB, Lhasa Block; QTB,
Qiangtang Block; KB, Kunlun Block; QDB, Qaidam Block; JB, Junggar Basin; TB, Tarim
Basin; QB, Qaidam Basin; SB, Sichuan Basin; YGP, Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau; MBT, Main
Boundary Thrust; IYS, Indus-Yarlung suture; BNS, Bangong-Nujiang suture; JS, Jin-
shajiang suture; AKMS, Anyimaqen-Kunlun-Mutztagh suture; F1, Jiali Fault; F2, Manyi
Yushu Xianshuihe Fault; F3, Kunlun Fault; F4, Haiyuan Fault; F5, Altyn Tagh Fault; F6,
Longmenshan Fault.
 C. Xu et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics 11 (2020) 468e473 471

Fig. 2. Completed Bouguer gravity anomaly of TP on the geoid. The major tectonic
elements (see Fig. 1) are overlain on the map for assistant analysis.
Fig. 3. Inverted HTS of TP at the average depth of 3 km. Green circles represent dis-
tribution of earthquake epicenters with moment magnitudes larger than 5.0, whose
records are provided by the China Earthquake Data Center (CEDE). The main tectonic
elements (see Fig. 1) are overlain on the map for assistant analysis (the same below).

and earthquake epicenters are stronger. There are apparent

densities rs are inverted from the corresponding Ds by Tikhonov northward extrusions in northern TP (along F4 and F5), and in the
regularization method. During the inversion, the reference mean east (along F6) the extrusion is nearly eastward, which are
densities of each layer are respective 2.55 g/cm3, 2.65 g/cm3, 2.80 g/ consistent with the direction of surface movement from GPS (see
cm3, 3.36 g/cm3, 3.36 g/cm3 and 3.36 g/cm3 according to the Pre- Fig. 1). In the south (HB), the direction of HTS is approximately
liminary Reference Earth Model (PREM) [33] and CRUST 1.0 [34]. southward, which is different with that of GPS. The reason may be
Based on the decomposed gravity anomalies Ds , the estimated that the accumulations caused by the long-term subduction of In-
mean source depth hs (Table 1) and the inverted densities rs (de- dian Plate toward Eurasian Plate produce southward force,
tails can refer to Xu et al. [26]), the maximum HTS ss at different although the whole HB is moving northward from GPS.
depths are inverted by Eqs. (14) and (17), and the results are shown At the depth of Moho depth (Fig. 6), the directions of HTS along
in Figs. 3e8. In the upper crust (Figs. 3 and 4), the magnitude of HTS F4, F5, F6 and HB are more uniform and clearer. The earthquakes are
is on the order of 0.1 MPa (1 MPa ¼ 106 Pa). The stress highs are mainly concentrated in the southern subducting area. There is a
primarily located at the boundaries of TP. The stresses in the basins
(TB, QB and SB) and center TP are relatively low. The major faults
and earthquake epicenters are consistent with stress highs. The
stresses in HB present strong south-north extrusion, which is cor-
responding to the collision between the India and Eurasia plates [5].
Besides, the extrusion in southeastern TP (especially along F6) is
obvious, implying high earthquake risk in this area. 2008 Wen-
chuan earthquake and 2013 Lushan earthquake are both located in
this region.
In Fig. 5, the most magnitude of HTS exceeds 1.0 MPa at the
depth of 20 km. The correlations among stress highs, major faults

Table 1
Estimated mean source depth (h1  h6 ) of decomposed gravity anomalies (D1 
D6 ) in TP.

Corresponding number Mean source depth (km)

Fig. 4. Inverted HTS of TP at the average depth of 8 km.
h1 3
h2 8
h3 20
h4 50
h5 90
h6 130

Table 2
Layered model of the crust and upper mantle in TP. Reference mean density of
each layer is derived from the PREM and the CRUST1.0

Number Depth range (km) grid interval (degree) Reference mean

density (g/cm3)

Layer 1 0e6 0.5  0.5 2.55

Layer 2 6e10 0.5  0.5 2.65
Layer 3 10e30 0.5  0.5 2.80
Layer 4 30e70 0.5  0.5 3.36
Layer 5 70e110 0.5  0.5 3.36
Layer 6 110e150 0.5  0.5 3.36
Fig. 5. Inverted HTS of TP at the average depth of 20 km.
472 C. Xu et al. / Geodesy and Geodynamics 11 (2020) 468e473
stress low corridor formed at (27 N, 100 E) between F1 and F2. In
Figs. 7 and 8, the HTS are smoother and the earthquakes are rare.
The most HTS exceed 7.0 MPa. The stress directions at (27 N, 100 E)
and (37 N, 103 E) are southeast and northeast, respectively. It in-
dicates that due to the obstacle of SB, the eastward materials flow
nearly southeast and almost northeast, respectively. Moreover, the
direction of HTS is consistent with that from Liang et al. [4] through
GPS, Ghosh et al. [12] using gravity data and Heidbach et al. [35,36]
by earthquake focal mechanism and stress measurement. It also
shows that the surface movement direction may be in agreement
with that in the upper mantle.
To sum up, the magnitude of HTS are increasing with depths. In
the middle crust, lower crust and upper mantle, the HTS produced
by density inhomogeneity are on the order of 1.0 MPa, which is
Fig. 6. Inverted HTS of TP at the average depth of 50 km.
Fig. 7. Inverted HTS of TP at the average depth of 90 km.
Fig. 8. Inverted HTS of TP at the average depth of 130 km.
smaller than that caused by mantle convection and plate subduc-
tion [37]. The directions of multilayer HTS are corresponding with
that from previous studies, showing that the approach in this paper
is correct and effective. According to the inverted HTS, the mass
movement patterns in western and eastern TP are different. In the
west, the mass movement direction is nearly south-north. In the
east, it is almost east-west. Overall, the mass movement pattern in
TP present clockwise.
5. Conclusions
Inverting multilayer HTS in TP are useful to improve the
knowledge of mass movement patterns. In this paper, an improved
approach is designed to determine multilayer HTS from gravity
observations in TP. The inverted multilayer HTS identify the mass
movement patterns, which is corresponding with that from pre-
vious publications, verifying the feasibility of the method in this
study. Moreover, the main tectonic structure can be revealed from
the multilayer HTS. Major faults and earthquake epicenters are
primarily located at the stress high zones. In contrast, the HTS in the
stable basins and center TP are low. The mass movement patterns
in whole TP present clockwise, the mass movement direction being
nearly south-north in the west and almost east-west in the east. In
conclusion, our method is effective to determine three-dimensional
HTS underneath TP. This work also provides a novel perspective for
the relevant geophysical inversion.
Author statement
The all authors declare that this manuscript is original, has not
been published before and is not currently being considered for
publication elsewhere.
The authors confirm that the manuscript has been read and
approved by all named authors and that there are no other persons
who satisfied the criteria for authorship but are not listed. All au-
thors further confirm that the order of authors listed in the
manuscript has been approved by all of them.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that there is no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their sincere thanks the Bu-
reau Gravime trique International (BGI) for supplying gravity data
and the CEDE for supplying earthquake data. The figures were
made using Generic Mapping Tools (GMT). This research is sup-
ported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant
No. 41974014) and the Open Fund of State Laboratory of Informa-
tion Engineering in Surveying, Mapping and Remote Sensing,
Wuhan University (Grant No. 19P01), the Foundation of Young
Creative Talents in Higher Education of Guangdong Province (Grant
No. 2019KQNCX009) and the Open Fund of Guangxi Key Laboratory
of Spatial Information and Geomatics (Grant No. 19-050-11-03).
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Chuang Xu (1986), Suizhou City, Hubei Province, Associate
professor, Ph.D., studies in the crustal structure refine-
ment, gravity data processing, etc.