Tracing Stress Fields Along the Africa-Eurasia Plate Boundary

The Africa–Eurasia plate boundary presents one of the world’s most varied and dynamic tectonic settings—encompassing subduction zones, strike-slip faults and continental collisions—and its study is essential for assessing seismic hazard and regional geodynamics. The relentless interaction between the African and Eurasian plates has produced spatially complex stress fields whose past and present configurations must be unravelled if we are to anticipate future seismicity. Coupling historic earthquake catalogues with modern geophysical datasets (e.g., earthquake ruptures, seismic moment tensors, InSAR and GPS strain rates, aftershock sequences) yields critical insights into how tectonic stress accumulates, reorients and releases along different segments of the boundary. The contributions to this Research Topic will synthesise our current understanding of stress-field evolution along the Africa–Eurasia boundary by integrating diverse datasets and approaches. They will also serve as an update on future seismic-hazard assessments, and advanced models of lithospheric deformation in tectonically active regions.We call for original research papers that trace the temporal evolution of stress regimes from the early 20th-century instrumental record to today. We welcome studies on:• Reconstruction of faulting mechanisms and stress orientations through integrated analyses of fault-plane solutions, rupture characteristics and geodetic observations.• Re-examination of major historical earthquakes—evaluating their rupture processes and faulting kinematics, aftershock patterns and inferred stress changes—and place them within a coherent seismotectonic framework.• Quantification of the influence of lithospheric heterogeneity (e.g. variations in crustal thickness, thermal structure, inherited fabrics) and rheological contrasts on local and regional stress distributions.• Exploration of plate-scale dynamics, fault-system interactions and the role of subduction versus continental collision in driving long-term deformation and seismic hazard.Key geographic focus areas include, but are not limited to, the Western and Eastern Mediterranean, Alboran Sea, the Adriatic region, the Hellenic subduction margin, and the volcanic provinces. Methodological advances—whether in seismic imaging, earthquake rupture parameters, geodetic inversion, numerical modelling or multidisciplinary data fusion—are especially encouraged if they shed new light on the mechanics of the complex boundary. Topic editors: Mourad Bezzeghoud, Mustapha MEGHRAOUI, Elisa Buforn, Anastasia Kiratzi Source: https://www.frontiersin.org/research-topics/71106/tracing-stress-fields-along-the-africa-eurasia-plate-boundary