Kazushige Obara

Recent progress of seismic observation networks in Japan —Hi-net, F-net, K-NET and KiK-net—

After the disastrous 1995 Kobe earthquake, a new national project has started to drastically improve seismic observation system in Japan. A large number of strong-motion, high-sensitivity, and broadband seismographs were installed to construct dense and uniform networks covering the whole of Japan. The new high-sensitivity seismo-graph network consisting of 696 stations is called Hi-net, while the broadband seismograph network consisting of 71 stations is called F-net. At most of Hi-net stations strong-motion seismographs are also equipped both at depth and the ground surface. The network of these 659 stations with an uphole/downhole pair of strong-motion seismographs is called KiK-net, while another network consisting of 1034 strong-motion seismographs installed at the ground surface is called K-NET. Here, all the station numbers are as of April 2003. High-sensitivity data from Hi-net and pre-existing seismic networks operated by various institutions have been transmitted to and processed by the Japan Meteorological Agency since October 1997 to monitor the seismic activity in and around Japan. The same data are shared to university group in real time using satellite communication for their research work. The data are also archived at the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention and stored in their database system for public use under a fully open policy.

Propagation of slow slip leading up to the 2011 mw 9.0 tohoku-oki earthquake

Before Tohoku-Oki Recordings by Japans dense seismic network in the days and weeks before the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake provide an opportunity to interrogate what caused the dynamic rupture of one of the largest earthquakes on record. Using a method to extract small earthquakes that are often obscured by overlapping seismic waves, Kato et al. (p. 705, published online 19 January) identified over a thousand small repeating earthquakes that migrated slowly toward the hypocenter of the main rupture. Based on the properties of these foreshocks, the plate interface experienced two sequences of slow slip, the second of which probably contributed a substantial amount of stress and may have initiated the nucleation of the main shock. Two sequences of slow slip preceded and migrated toward the main rupture. Many large earthquakes are preceded by one or more foreshocks, but it is unclear how these foreshocks relate to the nucleation process of the mainshock. On the basis of an earthquake catalog created using a waveform correlation technique, we identified two distinct sequences of foreshocks migrating at rates of 2 to 10 kilometers per day along the trench axis toward the epicenter of the 2011 moment magnitude (Mw) 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake in Japan. The time history of quasi-static slip along the plate interface, based on small repeating earthquakes that were part of the migrating seismicity, suggests that two sequences involved slow-slip transients propagating toward the initial rupture point. The second sequence, which involved large slip rates, may have caused substantial stress loading, prompting the unstable dynamic rupture of the mainshock.

A densely distributed high-sensitivity seismograph network in Japan: Hi-net by National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention

Seismic observations to retrieve various information from the Earth are the basis of seismology. A seismic observation system requires various technologies for vibration sensors, analog-and-digital measurement, data transmission, and computing for mass data analysis, for example. New developments in technology are adopted whenever possible in the construction of seismic observation systems. In Japan, after the disastrous Kobe Earthquake in 1995, a high-density and high-sensitivity seismograph network was constructed. The seismic network, called the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Prevention (NIED) Hi-net, uniformly covers the Japanese Islands with a spacing of 20–30km. As a result, the detection capability for microearthquakes has been greatly improved, and various research using Hi-net data has indicated that this seismic network has a great potential to resolve the underground structure and various geophysical phenomena as a radar-array oriented toward the Earth. Equipped with...

Repeating short- and long-term slow slip events with deep tremor activity around the Bungo channel region, southwest Japan

We report the repeating occurrence of short- and long-term slow slip events (SSE) which are accompanied by deep tremor activity around the Bungo channel region, southwest Japan. Both of these activities are detected by NIED Hi-net, which is composed of densely distributed observatories equipped with a set of tiltmeter and a high-sensitivity seismograph. Since the short-term SSE is small in magnitude, GPS can detect only the long-term SSE. Some of these episodes have nearly the same surface deformation pattern. This shows the existence of ‘slow slip patches’ on a plate interface, where the episodic slow slip is the characteristic slip behavior. We observe a change in periodicity and size of the short-term episode after the onset of the long-term SSE. Moreover, the long-term slow slip accelerates when the short-term activity takes place. This suggests that there is an interaction between these two types of SSEs.

Very low frequency earthquakes excited by the 2004 off the Kii peninsula earthquakes: A dynamic deformation process in the large accretionary prism

Anomalous seismic events were observed after the occurrence of the foreshock (Mw=7.2) and the main shock (Mw=7.5) of the 2004 off the Kii peninsula earthquakes. These anomalous events are characterized by very low-frequency energy of around 10 seconds with almost no higher-frequency energy and are considered the same as the very low-frequency (VLF) earthquakes discovered by Ishihara (2003) in some places along the Nankai trough, southwest Japan. The VLF seismic activity is mainly coincident with the aftershock area of the 2004 off the Kii peninsula earthquakes; however a minor activity was also excited in the southern Kii channel area. The VLF seismograms sometimes include higher-frequency wave trains with amplitudes much smaller than that of regular aftershocks. This indicates that VLF earthquakes have different source properties from the regular earthquakes. The centroid moment tensor analysis for one of the larger events suggests that the source depth is very shallow and the focal mechanism is the reverse faulting. These features suggest that the event occurs on the well-developed reverse fault system in the large accretionary prism near the Nankai trough. The swarm activity of VLF earthquakes might be considered as a chain-like occurrence of slips on the reverse fault system and thus the signature of a dynamic deformation process in the accretionary prism.

Three‐dimensional crustal S wave velocity structure in Japan using microseismic data recorded by Hi‐net tiltmeters

[1] We developed a three-step method for three-dimensional (3-D) S wave velocity tomography by fitting synthetic cross spectra to the observed ones of ambient seismic noise. We applied this method to the recording of Hi-net tiltmeters in Japan at 679 stations from June 2004 to December 2004. First, we calculated normalized cross spectra between radial components and those between transverse components for every pair of stations. The first step is local 1-D S wave velocity inversion for each station assuming small lateral heterogeneity under a 100-km circle of a station. We measured the dispersion curves of fundamental Rayleigh waves, fundamental Love waves, and first overtone of Love waves by fitting the synthetic cross spectra to the observed ones between pairs of stations within the circle. We inverted the measured dispersion curves for obtaining a 1-D S wave velocity model. The second step is the inversion of the observed cross spectra for obtaining path-averaged 1-D S wave velocity structure. The third step is the inversion of the resultant path-averaged structures for obtaining 3-D S wave velocity structure (0.1 � 0.1 � 1 km grid from the surface to a depth of 50 km) using ray approximation. The resultant S wave velocity structures show clear low-velocity anomalies along tectonic lines from the surface to a depth of 20 km. In particular, along the Hidaka mountain range, we observed S wave perturbation more extreme than � 20%. They also show low-velocity anomalies under volcanoes in Kyusyu and Tohoku. In the southwestern part of Shikoku, our results show a clear low-velocity anomaly corresponding to an accretional belt (Shimanto belt). Below 20 km, we observe a low-velocity anomaly in the center of Japan, which suggests a thick crust. Citation: Nishida, K., H. Kawakatsu, and K. Obara (2008), Three-dimensional crustal S wave velocity structure in Japan using microseismic data recorded by Hi-net tiltmeters, J. Geophys. Res., 113, B10302, doi:10.1029/2007JB005395.

Connecting slow earthquakes to huge earthquakes

Slow earthquakes are characterized by a wide spectrum of fault slip behaviors and seismic radiation patterns that differ from those of traditional earthquakes. However, slow earthquakes and huge megathrust earthquakes can have common slip mechanisms and are located in neighboring regions of the seismogenic zone. The frequent occurrence of slow earthquakes may help to reveal the physics underlying megathrust events as useful analogs. Slow earthquakes may function as stress meters because of their high sensitivity to stress changes in the seismogenic zone. Episodic stress transfer to megathrust source faults leads to an increased probability of triggering huge earthquakes if the adjacent locked region is critically loaded. Careful and precise monitoring of slow earthquakes may provide new information on the likelihood of impending huge earthquakes.

Regional differences of random inhomogeneities around the volcanic front in the Kanto‐Tokai area, Japan, revealed from the broadening of S wave seismogram envelopes

Broadening of seismogram envelopes around direct S waves of deep earthquakes that occurred in a lithospheric slab reveals random inhomogeneities in the upper mantle and crust. Regional differences in the character of envelope broadening were studied in relation to the volcanic front in the central part of Japan. A total of 58 earthquakes that occurred along the subducting Pacific plate ranging from 80 to 500 km in depth were observed at 73 stations of the Kanto-Tokai seismic observation network and used in this analysis. Time lags of the maximum peak arrival and the half-maximum arrival were measured from the onset of the direct S wave on root-mean-squared traces of horizontal component seismograms in frequency bands of 1, 2, 4, and 8 Hz. The envelope broadening is weak at stations located along the coastline of the Pacific Ocean, however, the dependence of time lags on the hypocentral distance and frequency becomes strong at stations near the volcanic front. Moreover, the time lags become very long with increasing hypocentral distances and frequencies west of the volcanic front. This broadening of the seismogram envelope can be interpreted as the effect of the diffraction and multiple forward scattering on the seismic wave propagation through random inhomogeneities. The parabolic approximation is applied to simulate the envelope broadening when the correlation distance of velocity inhomogeneities is longer than the seismic wavelength. The numerical simulation indicates that the dependence of the envelope broadening on the travel distance and frequency depends greatly on the type of the autocorrelation function for the randomness. By comparing the observed frequency dependence of the envelope broadening with the result of the numerical simulation, the type of the autocorrelation function was estimated to be close to Gaussian at stations east of the volcanic front and close to exponential west of the volcanic front. The regional difference in the randomness on both sides of the volcanic front might reflect the difference in the short-wavelength component inhomogeneities.

Slow Earthquakes Linked Along Dip in the Nankai Subduction Zone

Three types of temporally linked slow earthquakes may limit nearby buildup of stress. We identified a strong temporal correlation between three distinct types of slow earthquakes distributed over 100 kilometers along the dip of the subducting oceanic plate at the western margin of the Nankai megathrust rupture zone, southwest Japan. In 2003 and 2010, shallow very-low-frequency earthquakes near the Nankai trough as well as nonvolcanic tremor at depths of 30 to 40 kilometers were triggered by the acceleration of a long-term slow slip event in between. This correlation suggests that the slow slip might extend along-dip between the source areas of deeper and shallower slow earthquakes and thus could modulate the stress buildup on the adjacent megathrust rupture zone.

Low-velocity oceanic crust at the top of the Philippine Sea and Pacific plates beneath the Kanto region, central Japan, imaged by seismic tomography

[1] We construct fine-scale three-dimensional P and S wave velocity structures beneath the Kanto region, central Japan, by seismic tomography with a spatial correlation of velocities. The Philippine Sea and Pacific plates subduct beneath the Eurasian plate in this area and are imaged with high velocities. Oceanic crust at the uppermost part of these subducting plates is a low-velocity layer. Low-velocity oceanic crust of the Philippine Sea plate subducts to a depth of approximately 80 km. There are also two low-velocity bodies with relatively high V P /V S ratios of 1.80-1.90 in the mantle wedge above the oceanic crust of the Philippine Sea plate. We speculate that the westernmost of these two low-velocity bodies consists of 20% partially serpentinized peridotite, continuous with gabbro in the oceanic crust of the uppermost Philippine Sea plate, while the eastern body is composed of 30% partially serpentinized peridotite. We trace the subducting oceanic crust of the Pacific plate to a depth of ∼120 km. The estimated V P /V S ratio of this layer is 1.85-1.90, which indicates a low probability of molten rock; the gabbroic oceanic crust may have been metamorphosed to garnet-granulite.