Do fault slip data inversions actually yield “paleostresses” that can be compared with contemporary stresses? A critical discussion

Based on a review of published literature and on the report of a few case studies, this paper summarizes the state of the art on paleostress determinations by fault slip data inversions, with the aim at discussing whether these techniques actually yield a quantity that has a “paleostress meaning” (i.e., ancient stress) and whether there is an adequate basis for a reliable comparison of such “paleostresses” with contemporary stresses in terms of orientations and patterns at different scales of time and space in the Earth's crust.