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Coseismic fault rupture at the trench axis during the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake

Nature Geoscience volume 5, pages 646–650 (2012)Cite this article

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Abstract

Fault rupture during the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake, which generated a huge tsunami, is thought to have propagated to a shallow part of the subduction zone1,2,3. This observation calls into question conceptual models that assume that the shallow part of the plate boundary interface in a seismogenic subduction zone slips aseismically4,5. However, the available observations of the earthquake and tsunami do not have sufficient resolution near to the subduction trench to determine whether coseismic fault slip extended all the way to the trench axis. Here we use seismic reflection data to image the subduction trench axis seawards of the Tohoku-oki earthquake epicentre. We compare an image of a profile taken in 1999 with one acquired along the same profile 11 days after the earthquake. Before the earthquake, we observe a triangular wedge of sediments at the trench axis. After the earthquake, we observe a deformed upheaval structure in the sedimentary layer that is 3 km long and 350 m thick. We suggest that this remarkable deformation structure formed as a result of compression during coseismic slip on the shallow plate interface, implying that fault rupture during the Tohoku-oki earthquake did reach the sea floor at the trench axis. We conclude that the shallow plate interface at the subduction trench axis can slip seismically.

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Figure 1: Map showing the location of the seismic profile.
Figure 2: Seismic reflection and differential bathymetry image seawards of the epicentre.
Figure 3: Seismic image of the frontal prism.
Figure 4: Comparison of seismic images obtained before and after the earthquake.

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Acknowledgements

The seismic survey was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for a Special Purpose from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology. A part of the data processing and interpretation was supported by the J-RAPID program of the Japan Science and Technology Agency.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Research on Earth Evolution, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Showa-machi 3173-25, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan

    Shuichi Kodaira, Tetsuo No, Yasuyuki Nakamura, Toshiya Fujiwara, Yuka Kaiho & Seiichi Miura

  2. Earthquake and Tsunami Research Project for Disaster Prevention, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Showa-machi 3173-25, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan

    Narumi Takahashi & Yoshiyuki Kaneda

  3. Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology, Natsushima 2-15, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan

    Asahiko Taira

Authors
  1. Shuichi Kodaira
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Contributions

S.K. designed the survey, interpreted data and wrote the paper. T.N., Y.N. and S.M. participated in data acquisition and processing. T.F. processed bathymetry data. Yuka K. participated in data acquisition as a chief scientist. N.T., Yoshiyuki K. and A.T. organized data-acquisition cruises. All authors equally contributed to scientific discussions.

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Correspondence to Shuichi Kodaira.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Kodaira, S., No, T., Nakamura, Y. et al. Coseismic fault rupture at the trench axis during the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake. Nature Geosci 5, 646–650 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo1547

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