Search

We conducted a detailed investigation of seismic activity from January 2011 to February 2013 along the Nankai trough off the Kii Peninsula, central Japan, by using data obtained from the DONET ocean-bottom observation network. The hypocenters are mostly within the subducting Philippine Sea (PHS) plate, although a few are along the plate boundary or in the sedimentary wedge below the Kumano forearc basin. The seismic activity can be separated into events above and below 20 km depth, which corresponds approximately to the Moho. The hypocenter distributions are distinctly different for these groups. The seismic activity in the oceanic crust can be further separated into three clusters. Most of the seismic activity recorded in our data represents aftershocks of the 2004 off the Kii Peninsula earthquakes ( M = 7.1, 7.4, and 6.5), which occurred in the PHS plate. The hypocenter distribution in the oceanic crust correlates well with the location of the Paleo-Zenisu ridge, which is formed by a chain of seamounts that is subducting beneath the forearc basin. The hypocenters in the uppermost mantle are aligned on a plane dipping to the southeast, consistent with the existence of a thrust fault cutting through the lithosphere of the oceanic plate. The focal mechanisms of the earthquakes show that the axis of compressive stress in the PHS plate is oriented N-S, almost perpendicular to the direction of plate convergence, indicating a complex tectonic regime in this region. These results suggest that intraplate shortening may be occurring in the subducting oceanic plate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to understand the characteristics of shallow very low-frequency (VLF) events as revealed by recent ocean-floor observation studies, we perform a trial simulation of earthquake cycles in the Tonankai district by taking the characteristics of the 1944 Tonankai earthquake and assuming that slow earthquakes occur on numerous small asperities. Our simulation results show that the increase of moment release rate of shallower VLF events in the pre-seismic stage of a megathrust earthquake is higher than that of deeper VLF events. This increase may make leveling change due to VLF swarms detectable at Dense Oceanfloor Network system for Earthquakes and Tsunamis (DONET). We also introduce the time series of hydraulic pressure data at DONET, comparing with the leveling change expected from our numerical simulation. Since leveling change due to shallower VLF swarms is so local as to be incoherent, removal of the moving-averaged data from the data stacked by four nearby observation points in the same node may be useful to detect the short-term local leveling change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigated the correlation between coastal and offshore tsunami heights by using data from the Dense Oceanfloor Network for Earthquakes and Tsunamis (DONET) observational array of ocean-bottom pressure gauges in the Nankai trough off the Kii Peninsula, Japan. For near-field earthquakes, hydrostatic pressure changes may not accurately indicate sea surface fluctuations, because ocean-bottom pressure gauges are simultaneously displaced by crustal deformation due to faulting. To avoid this problem, we focused on the average waveform of the absolute value of the hydrostatic pressure changes recorded at all the DONET stations during a tsunami. We conducted a Monte Carlo tsunami simulation that revealed a clear relationship between the average waveforms of DONET and tsunami heights at the coast. This result indicates the possibility of accurate real-time prediction of tsunamis by use of arrays of ocean-bottom pressure gauges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]