Unusual Rupture Process of the Japan Sea Earthquake

Eos, Vol. 74, No. 34, August 24, 1993 ure 4, which shows the result of multiple Unusual Rupture currence of large, shallow, underthrusting shock inversion of P-waves recorded by the earthquakes on the west coast of Honshu IRIS network. Process of the Japan and Hokkaido is somewhat odd. Nonethe less, there is now almost a continuous link Vertical displacements of Okushiri were age of the rupture areas of such earthquakes measured by Shimamoto et al. (Shimamoto Sea Earthquake off the western coasts of Honshu and Hok et al., personal communication, 1993). Ac PAGES 377, 379-380 kaido, and this activity extends north to cording to Shimamoto et al., the earthquake Sakalin. subsided and tilted the island. The amount On July 12, 1993, a large earthquake and The August 2, 1940, earthquake ruptured of subsidence ranges from about 20 cm associated tsunami caused terrible damage the northernmost segment along this margin; (±10 cm) at the northern end to about 90 to the Japan Sea side of Japan, Korea, and the June 16, 1964, Niigata earthquake rup cm (±10 cm) at the southern end of the is Russia. The southwestern shore of Hokkaido tured the southernmost segment; and the land. This Okushiri subsidence seems to and Okushiri Island were particularly hard May 26, 1983, Japan Sea earthquake then support the idea that the earthquake's main hit. All aspects of this earthquake will un filled in a segment off northern Honshu [see rupture occurred on the westerly dipping doubtedly be studied in great detail. This Fukao and Furumoto, 1975; Satake, 1986]. It steep fault plane as suggested from the east- brief report focuses on the tectonic setting now appears that the July 12, 1993, event west cross-section of the aftershock distribu and some puzzles encountered in the pre ruptured the segment between the 1940 and tion (Figure 2) and the inversion of the long- liminary seismological analysis. 1983 earthquakes (Figure 1). period seismic waves (Figure 3b). At first glance, the July 12 event appears The focal mechanisms of the 1940, 1964, No clear precursory events had been re to have occurred on the "wrong side" of Ja and 1983 earthquakes are all consistent with ported before the earthquake, except for a pan (see Figure 1). The Pacific plate sub the Sea of Japan thrusting beneath Honshu temperature increase of hot springs at Ka- and Hokkaido. Since there is no deep Wa muiwaki on Okushiri and the occurrence of ducts to the west beneath northern Honshu dati-Benioff zone associated with the under local earthquakes felt only on the island. and Hokkaido, and a Wadati-Benioff zone thrusting of the Sea of Japan, one simple The springs' usual temperature is about extends to 700-km depth beneath the Sea of interpretation of the tectonics is that a new 60°C, according to the manager, but it in Japan. Great underthrusting earthquakes are subduction zone is forming off the west creased to approximately 80-90°C about 10 expected to occur on the east coast of Hon coast of Honshu and Hokkaido [see Naka days before the quake and the hot springs shu and Hokkaido, such as the 1968 Toka- mura, 1983; Seno, 1985; Cook etal., 1986; stopped flowing afterward. chi-Oki (magnitude 8.2) and 1978 Miyagi-Oki (magnitude 7.6) earthquakes. Thus, the oc- DeMets, 1992]. Thus, a closer look at this Continuous measurements of crustal de formation have been made at several land 140°E 145°E stations on the Japan Sea side of Hokkaido. We made a preliminary analysis of strainme- ter and tiltmeter records from the nearest station, KKJ, which is about 50 km from the source area, but no clear precursory event 45°N was found. Figure 5 shows that the source area is now covered by many temporary instruments that have been set up jointly by several uni versities.—Ichiro Nakanishi, Shuichi Kodaira, Reiji Kobayashi, Minoru Kasahara, Depart ment of Geophysics, Faculty of Science, Hok kaido University, Japan; and Masayuki Kiku- chi, Yokohama City University, Department of Earth Sciences, Japan References Kobayashi, YM On the initiation of subduction of plates (in Japanese), Earth Monthly, 5, 510, 1983. Nakamura, K., Possible nascent trench along the 40°N eastern Japan Seas the convergent boundary be tween Eurasian and North American plates (in Japanese with English abstract), Bull. Earthq. Res. Inst., University of Tokyo, 58, 711, 1983. Nakanishi, I., Y. Hanakago, T. Moriya, and M. Kasahara, Performance test on long-period mo ment tensor determination for near earthquakes by a sparse local network, Geophys. Res. Lett., 18, 223, 1991. Tamaki, K., Geological structure of the Japan Sea and its tectonic implications, Bull. Geol. Surv. Japan, 39, 269, 1988. 139° 140° Fig. 1. Tectonic setting of the July 12, 1993, earthquake. Epicenter is shown by the star off southwest Hokkaido, and the inset map shows the details of the aftershock area and bathymetry of the outlined region. Pacific plate subducts along the Japan Trench (dashed) off the eastern coast of Japan. The aftershock areas of several recent large underthrusting earth quakes are shown, with the years of their occurrence. Aftershock areas of the recent large earthquakes on the Japan Sea side of Honshu and Hokkaido are also shown, with their fo cal mechanisms. The shaded quadrants are compressional, and all earthquakes have one nodal plane with a shallow dip toward the east. This page may be freely copied. Eos, Vol. 74, No. 34, August 24, 1993 region shows that the July 12, 1993, event is than 45°. Next, we employed a body wave bility; there is a trough immediately to the not on the "wrong side" of Japan—instead, inversion method that provides the best east of a narrow ridge in the northern part of Japan is unfairly burdened with active under depth, moment tensor, and source time his the source region (see filled region east of thrusting on both sides! tory of the earthquake [see Ruff and Tich- epicenter in Figure 1 inset). If we speculate The preliminary Harvard CMT focal elaar, 1990]. Using a total of fourteen that the fault plane dips to the west in this mechanism for the July 12 earthquake is P-waves with good azimuthal coverage of the region, then the "polarity" must switch to an shown in Figure 2a (see Dziewonski and focal sphere, we find that the best point east-dipping fault in the vicinity of Okushiri Woodhouse [1983] for details of method). source depth for the earthquake is between Island. The Macquarie Ridge, south of New From the viewpoint of subduction initiation, 10 and 15 km; the best focal mechanism has Zealand, offers another example of a newly this is exactly what we would expect for the the shallow-dip nodal plane dipping to the forming subduction zone where the "polari faulting geometry: a fault plane that dips at a west (in basic agreement with the USGS fo ty" of underthrusting switches back and forth shallow angle to the east, with the Sea of cal mechanism); and the source time history [see Ruff et al., 1989]. Perhaps new subduc Japan thrust beneath Hokkaido. However, consists of an initial sharp pulse with dura tion zones undergo a "confused" stage in the U.S. Geological Survey focal mechanism tion of 10 s and moment release of 2 x 1020 their growth before establishing a consistent determined from body wave inversion pres Nm, followed by a complex, on-going rup polarity of subduction.—Yuichiro Tanioka, ents some dissenting information (Figure 2b, ture for at least another 40 s. These prelimi Larry Ruff, and Kenji Satake, Department of see Sipkin [1986] for details); it is also an nary results seem to reinforce the discrep Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, underthrusting mechanism, but the nodal ancy between the two methods. How can Ann Arbor plane with the shallow dip (the candidate this paradox be resolved? fault plane) is dipping toward the west rather The CMT method gives an integrated Acknowledgments than the east. To examine this discrepancy, view of the overall faulting geometry. The We are grateful to Goran Ekstrom and we performed independent analyses of both body wave inversion uses higher frequency colleagues at Harvard, and Stuart Sipkin and the long-period CMT and body wave inver information and is potentially sensitive to colleagues at the USGS for granting permis changes in the fault geometry during the sion to find the best focal mechanism. Our sion to show their results. Also, we thank CMT focal mechanism (Figure 2c) agrees in earthquake. For the July 12, 1993, earth the IRIS and pre-POSEIDON data centers for the essential characteristic that the shallow quake, the initial sharp pulse is probably the rapid access to digital data. We thank sev dipping fault plane is clearly the eastward- dominant influence on the P-wave inversion eral colleagues who freely provided prelimi dipping one, and the formal errors of the results. The lower amplitude waves that fol nary seismological information, especially M. analysis do not allow the dip to be greater low may be generated by a different fault Kikuchi who also found similar results for geometry; we can not say for sure one way P-wave inversion. Earthquake and tsunami or another with our preliminary analysis. research at the University of Michigan is sup Thus, our initial explanation of the discrep ported by the National Science Foundation. a) HRV CMT b) USGS ancy is that the focal mechanism with a shallow dip to the west is the correct geome References try for the initial rupture of this earthquake, but most of the moment release occurred Cook, D. B., K.

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