The orientations of igneous and clastic dikes, and of mineral veins are clues to the estimation of paleostresses. In , Blamey Stevens was the first researcher to describe the formation of dikes as being perpendicular to the least compressive stress axis. Ernest M. Anderson pioneered the publication of paleostress maps, which were shown in his textbook. However, nearly three decades elapsed after the publication of Anderson s book until paleostress analysis using dilatant structures became

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... r. Since the s, analysis of paleostresses using dilatant structures has been sufficiently improved to determine not only the sigmaaxis, but also other stress axes and stress ratio. It is now possible that dikes which formed under different stress conditions can be numerically classified into subsets to distinguish their conditions of formation. In this paper, we provide a historical review of methods for inferring paleostresses from the orientations of dilatant structures.