Heterogeneity of frontal structure of overriding plate controls co-seismic megathrust slip distribution in trench axial zone, Japan Trench and other subduction zones
Abstract
The 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku earthquake induced a giant tsunami by a dynamic slip with the overshoot of the frontal part of the overriding plate near the Japan Trench axis. The maximum slip during the earthquake was detected beneath the deformed zone in the trench axial region of the Miyagi-oki region. The variation in coseismic slip rate would be controlled by a crustal structural variation in the plate interface, which results in a variation of a frictional nature. We estimated the P-wave velocity (Vp) structure to investigate the structural variation spatially correlating to the coseismic slip distribution during the 2011 earthquake by performing an airgun-ocean bottom seismometer experiment on the along-trench profile on the deformed zone in the Japan Trench axial region. We detected that the high Vp body in the hanging wall of the plate interface corresponding to the Cretaceous layer, which is more rigid than the sediment in the deformed zone, sticks out towards the trench axis in the Miyagi-oki segment. In the Miyagi-oki segment, the distance from the trench axis to the forefront of the rigid Cretaceous layer is shorter by ~40 km than in the Sanriku-oki. This means that the width of the less rigid sedimentary prism layer is smaller in the Miyagi-oki than that in the Sanriku-oki. We suggest that this along-arc variation of the hanging wall side structure would cause the difference in propagation of the dynamic slip toward the trench axis between the Miyagi-oki and the Sanriku-oki; the slip reached the trench axis in the Miyagi-oki but not in the Sanriku-oki during the 2011 earthquake. In addition, we found that the similar relationship between the hanging wall structure and the slip distribution of megathrust earthquake observed in Tohoku can recognized in the rupture zones of several major megathrust events, the 1952 Kamchatka, the 1964 Alaska, 1960 and 2010 Chile earthquakes. For example, the 1960 Chile earthquake exhibits the largest coseismic slip at the segment where the sticks out and sedimentary prism is the smallest. We suggest that surveying distribution of a backstop interface would supply important information to assess the passible location of peak slip during any future megathrust events.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUFM.T52B..03A
- Keywords:
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- 7240 SEISMOLOGY Subduction zones;
- 8104 TECTONOPHYSICS Continental margins: convergent;
- 8150 TECTONOPHYSICS Plate boundary: general