Distribution and magnitude of stress due to lateral variation of gravitational potential energy between Indian lowland and Tibetan plateau

Magnitudes of differential stress in the lithosphere, especially in the crust, are still disputed. Earthquake-based stress drop estimates indicate median values ca. 180 MPa, corresponding to a friction angle of ca. 10° to maintain the topographic relief between lowland and plateau for >10 Ma. The relative contribution of crustal strength to total lithospheric strength varies considerably laterally. In the region between lowland and plateau and inside the plateau the depth-integrated crustal strength is approximately equal to the depth-integrated strength of the mantle lithosphere. Simple analytical formulae predicting the lateral variation of depth-integrated stresses agree with numerically calculated stress fields, which show both the accuracy of the numerical results and the applicability of simple, rheology-independent, analytical predictions to highly variable, rheology-dependent stress fields. Our results indicate that (1) crustal strength can be locally equal to mantle lithosphere strength and that (2) crustal stresses must be at least one order of magnitude larger than median stress drops in order to support the plat