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Title: Temporal variation of intermediate-depth earthquakes around the time of the M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake

Abstract

Here, the temporal evolution of intermediate-depth seismicity before and after the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake reveals interactions between plate interface slip and deformation in the subducting slab. We investigate seismicity rate changes in the upper and lower planes of the double seismic zone beneath northeast Japan using both a β statistic approach and a temporal epidemic type aftershock sequence model. We do not observe an anomalous precursory increase in intermediate-depth earthquake activity preceding the mainshock; however, following the mainshock, we observe a rate increase for the intermediate-depth earthquakes in the upper plane. The average ratio of upper plane to lower plane activity and the mean deep aseismic slip rate both increased by factor of 2. An increase of downdip compression in the slab resulting from coseismic and postseismic deformation enhanced seismicity in the upper plane, which is dominated by events accommodating downdip shortening from plate unbending.

Authors:
ORCiD logo [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3]; ORCiD logo [1];  [3];  [1]
+ Show Author Affiliations
  1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Hiroshima Univ., Hiroshima (Japan)
  3. Tohoku Univ., Sendai (Japan)
Publication Date:
Research Org.:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Org.:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
OSTI Identifier:
1479311
Grant/Contract Number:  
AC02-05CH11231
Resource Type:
Accepted Manuscript
Journal Name:
Geophysical Research Letters
Additional Journal Information:
Journal Volume: 44; Journal Issue: 8; Journal ID: ISSN 0094-8276
Publisher:
American Geophysical Union
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Subject:
58 GEOSCIENCES; intermediate‐depth earthquakes; M9 Tohoku‐oki; repeating earthquakes; interplate earthquakes; seismogenesis; double-seismic zone

Citation Formats

Delbridge, Brent G., Kita, Saeko, Uchida, Naoki, Johnson, Christopher W., Matsuzawa, Toru, and Bürgmann, Roland. Temporal variation of intermediate-depth earthquakes around the time of the M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake. United States: N. p., 2017. Web. doi:10.1002/2017GL072876.
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Delbridge, Brent G., Kita, Saeko, Uchida, Naoki, Johnson, Christopher W., Matsuzawa, Toru, & Bürgmann, Roland. Temporal variation of intermediate-depth earthquakes around the time of the M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake. United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL072876
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Delbridge, Brent G., Kita, Saeko, Uchida, Naoki, Johnson, Christopher W., Matsuzawa, Toru, and Bürgmann, Roland. Wed . "Temporal variation of intermediate-depth earthquakes around the time of the M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake". United States. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL072876. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1479311.
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@article{osti_1479311,
title = {Temporal variation of intermediate-depth earthquakes around the time of the M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake},
author = {Delbridge, Brent G. and Kita, Saeko and Uchida, Naoki and Johnson, Christopher W. and Matsuzawa, Toru and Bürgmann, Roland},
abstractNote = {Here, the temporal evolution of intermediate-depth seismicity before and after the 2011 M9.0 Tohoku-oki earthquake reveals interactions between plate interface slip and deformation in the subducting slab. We investigate seismicity rate changes in the upper and lower planes of the double seismic zone beneath northeast Japan using both a β statistic approach and a temporal epidemic type aftershock sequence model. We do not observe an anomalous precursory increase in intermediate-depth earthquake activity preceding the mainshock; however, following the mainshock, we observe a rate increase for the intermediate-depth earthquakes in the upper plane. The average ratio of upper plane to lower plane activity and the mean deep aseismic slip rate both increased by factor of 2. An increase of downdip compression in the slab resulting from coseismic and postseismic deformation enhanced seismicity in the upper plane, which is dominated by events accommodating downdip shortening from plate unbending.},
doi = {10.1002/2017GL072876},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
number = 8,
volume = 44,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Apr 05 00:00:00 EDT 2017},
month = {Wed Apr 05 00:00:00 EDT 2017}
}
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Journal Article:
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Publisher's Version of Record
https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL072876
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Cited by: 8 works
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Figures / Tables:

Figure 1 Figure 1: JMA hypocenters selected for analysis (a) in map view and (b) in cross section. Shallow events are defined to have depths less than 40 km (red), and deep events are defined to have depths greater than 60 km (blue). Green and grey circles are events located in themore » transition depth range (40–70 km) and overriding plate, respectively, which were not included in the analysis. The purple, green, and black stars denote the locations of the 11 March 2011 M9.0 mainshock, 9 March 2011 M7.3 foreshock, and 7 April 2011M7.2 aftershock. The black squares denote M> 6.0 earthquakes. The orange squares represent the repeating earthquakes used to estimate the deep aseismic slip rate in Figure 3b. The plate interface depth contours are shownby dashed and continuous black lines in Figure 1a [Zhao et al., 1997; Kita et al., 2010a, 2010b]. The solid and dashed black lines in Figure 1b are a smoothed representation of the plate interface within the transect and the location of the neutral plane at 22 km plate-interface depth. (c) Schematic interpretation of stress inversion results for NE Japan from Kita et al. [2010a, 2010b] with the normalized event frequency, including and excluding the aftershocks of the 2003 Miyagi-oki intraplate earthquake. The red arrow denotes the location of the inverted neutral plane. Gray and open dots in the right panel show downdip compression and downdip tension, respectively.« less
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    Works referencing / citing this record:

    Seismic Activity Preceding the 2011 M w 9.0 Tohoku Earthquake, Japan, Analyzed With Multidimensional Template Matching
    journal, July 2019

    • Gardonio, B.; Campillo, M.; Marsan, D.
    • Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, Vol. 124, Issue 7
    • DOI: 10.1029/2018jb016751

    Statistical Significance of Precursory Gravity Changes Before the 2011 M w  9.0 Tohoku‐Oki Earthquake
    journal, July 2019

    • Wang, Lei; Burgmann, Roland
    • Geophysical Research Letters, Vol. 46, Issue 13
    • DOI: 10.1029/2019gl082682

    Physical mechanisms of oceanic mantle earthquakes: Comparison of natural and experimental events
    journal, November 2018

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