Seismic waveform analyses for the 1938 Off Fukushima earthquake sequence

The 1938 Off Fukushima (Shioya-oki) earthquakes sequence, which consists of five earthquakes of Mjmaranging from 6.9 to 7.5, occurred in the southern part of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake source area. In this region, the 1938 sequence was the only known M 7 earthquakes until the 2011 Tohoku earthquake occurred. Abe (1977, Tectonophysics) estimated the focal mechanisms and seismic moments of these events. The source parameters of the earthquake sequence are shown in the following table. However, the slip distributions are not known. Murotani et al. (2004, SSJ Fall Meeting) estimated slip distributions for event 1 (Mw 7.6, Fault size 60 km x 70 km), event 2 (Mw 7.9, Fault size 80 km x 60 km), and event 3 (Mw 7.8, Fault size 90 km x 60 km) from inversion of near-field seismic waveforms at Sendai, Niigata, Maebashi, Mito, and Hongo (Tokyo). We compared the observed teleseismic waveforms at Christchurch (CHR), De Bilt (DBN), Pasadena (PAS), and Pulkovo (PUL) with the calculated waveforms from these slip distributions. The result showed that the computed waveforms fairly reproduced the phases of the observation but the amplitudes for all events were several to several tens of times larger than the observations. It means that the slip amount and Mwobtained from the near field seismic waveforms inversion were over-estimated. For event 3, the slip distribution estimated from near-field data has two large slip areas (asperities) to the north and south of the hypocenter, although only the southern asperity was able to reproduce the observed near-field seismic waveforms. When we calculate the teleseismic waveforms using one asperity model, the amplitudes become small and the phases are reproduced better compared to two asperities model. Event 3 therefore seemed to have only one asperity. In addition to the re-analysis of near field seismic data, tsunami waveforms will be also computed and compared with the observations. This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP16H01838.

Event

Date

Time (UT)

Mjma

Mw(Abe, 1977)

Type (Abe, 1977)

Mw(this study)

1

May 23

7:18

7.0

7.7

Thrust

7.6

2

November 5

8:43

7.5

7.8

Thrust

7.9

3

November 5

10:50

7.3

7.7

Thrust

7.8

4

November 6

8:54

7.4

7.7

Normal

-

5

November 6

21:39

6.9

7.6

Normal

-