The 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake: Displacement Reaching the Trench Axis Toshiya Fujiwara,1* Shuichi Kodaira,2 Tetsuo No,2 Yuka Kaiho,2 Narumi Takahashi,3 Yoshiyuki Kaneda3 axis. A comparison of the bathymetry before and after the earthquake shows a sharp contrast in seafloor elevation at the trench axis, and the sea floor is shallower throughout the landward side. Notably, on the outermost landward slope, the 40-kmwide area between the slope break and the trench axis, the difference between the 1999 and 2011 data shows that the sea floor is 16 T 9 (±SD) m shallower on average (Fig. 1C). A comparison of the 2004 and 2011 data (Fig. 1D) shows the same trend, although the change was somewhat smaller (11 T 8 m). Furthermore, upward and downward changes in sea-floor elevation of T50 m are evident at the axial sea floor (Fig. 1, C and D), which are likely due to a submarine landslide (fig. S1E). A comparison of the 1999 and 2004 data obtained before the 2011 earthquake indicates no clear difference between the two sides of the trench axis [the average sea-floor elevation is 0 T 7 m (Fig. 1E)]. The observed sea-floor elevation change on the outermost landward slope corresponds to a sum of vertical displacement and additional uplift for the sloping sea floor due to horizontal displacement. We estimated the horizontal displacement by calculating the offset distance to maximize the he large tsunami that followed the 11 March 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake [moment magnitude (MW) 9.0] is believed to have been caused by a fault rupture extending to a shallow part of the subduction zone at the Japan Trench. This is indicated by various seismic and geodetic inversion procedures (1, 2); however, an accurate up-dip limit of the coseismic displacement has not yet been determined. We report repeated multibeam bathymetric surveys across the trench in the rupture zone before and after the earthquake to estimate its up-dip limit and quantify sea-floor displacement. In 1999 and 2004, multibeam bathymetric data were acquired simultaneously during active-source seismic surveys (3, 4). After the earthquake, from 22 to 23 March 2011, we carried out a bathymetric survey along the same track (Fig. 1, A and B) (5). The relative differences among these bathymetric data are minimal on the seaward side of the trench despite potential errors of several meters in vertical displacement and ~20 m in horizontal displacement (5). There were, however, large relative differences landward extended up to the trench axis, suggesting the earthquake fault rupture reached the trench T 50m Horizontal Displacement ' 143˚20 ' 143˚10 ' 143˚30 ' 143˚40 ' 143˚50 ' 144˚00 ' ' 144˚20 144˚10 ' 144˚30 ' ' 144˚50 ' 144˚50 144˚40 38˚10' B 10 km -8000 -7000 ' 143˚10 Landward Slope 38˚00' Slope Break -6000 ' 143˚20 -4000 -3000 -2000 Depth (m) ' ' ' ' ' 144˚00 143˚50 144˚20 144˚10 -5000 ' 143˚30 Seaward Slope Trench Axis 143˚40 ' ' 144˚40 144˚30 38˚10' 2011-1999 38˚00' ' 143˚50 ' 144˚00 ' ' 143˚20 43˚30' 1 ' 143˚40 ' 143˚50 39˚ ' 144˚00 -50 10 km -40 1 38˚ 38˚10' E 44˚10' 2004-1999 -30 -20 -10 38˚00' 0 10 20 30 Change in Seafloor Elevation (m) 40 ' 144˚40 144˚ 144˚50 146˚ A 44˚20' 1 Miyagi ' 144˚30 37˚ 1 44˚40' 44˚50' 1 9cm / yr Acknowledgments: We thank the crew of R/V Kairei and the technicians of Nippon Marine Enterprises for their dedication. The 2011 survey, part of the program launched following the earthquake, was supported by a Grant-in-Aid for Special Purposes of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT) and a contribution from JAMSTEC. www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/334/6060/1240/DC1 Materials and Methods Fig. S1 Table S1 Reference (9) 22 July 2011; accepted 4 November 2011 10.1126/science.1211554 50 36˚ Fig. 1. Changes in sea-floor elevation between bathymetric data before and after the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. (A) Location map with bathymetric survey track shown as yellow line. Coseismic horizontal displacement is estimated over the landward slope indicated by solid portion of yellow line. Cross shows the epicenter. (B) Multibeam bathymetry collected in 2011. Red triangles mark the trench axis; the blue triangle marks the landward slope break. Change in sea-floor elevation by subtracting the 1999 bathymetric data from the 2011 data (C), the 2004 data from the 2011 data (D), and the 1999 data from the 2004 data (E). The yellow star marks location of probable submarine landslide. 1240 References and Notes 1. S. Ide, A. Baltay, G. C. Beroza, Science 332, 1426 (2011); 10.1126/science.1207020. 2. T. Maeda, T. Furumura, S. Sakai, M. Shinohara, Earth Planets Space 63, 803 (2011). 3. T. Tsuru et al., J. Geophys. Res. 107, 2357 (2002). 4. A. Ito et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L05310 (2005). 5. Material and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online. 6. M. Sato et al., Science 332, 1395 (2011); 10.1126/ science.1207401. 7. M. Kido et al., paper no. MIS036-P10 presented at Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2011, 22 to 27 May 2011, Chiba, Japan. 8. Y. Ito et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L00G05 (2011). Supporting Online Material Pacific Plate JA 1 2011-2004 38˚00' ' ' 144˚30 142˚ KU 10 km 43˚10' 144˚20 140˚ 40˚ 38˚10' D ' 144˚10 H ' 143˚40 TRENC ' 143˚30 N 143˚20 + ' ' PA 10 km TOHO C 143˚10 cross correlation of bathymetry (5). The estimated displacement is 56 m relative to the 1999 data, and 50 m relative to the 2004 data, toward the eastsoutheast. After restoring the horizontal displacement, the average elevation change became 10 T 7 m in comparison between the 1999 and 2011 data (7 T 7 m between 2004 and 2011). We interpret these to represent vertical displacement from the fault motion along the subducting plate and uplift from other unknown processes such as inelastic deformation. Overall, the sea floor on the outermost landward slope moved ~50 m eastsoutheast toward the trench and ~7 to 10 m upward between 1999 and 2011. Our results are consistent with results of coseismic displacements determined at Global Positioning System (GPS)/acoustic sea-floor geodetic stations (6, 7) and other ocean-bottom instruments (8). Although our estimate of the average vertical displacement may be larger because of coseismic displacement, the earthquake probably caused little change on the seaward side. Combined with these geodetic studies, our study demonstrates the coseismic displacement increased toward the trench and reached the trench axis. This large coseismic horizontal displacement and the steeply sloping sea floor produced large additional uplift by ~4 to 6 m in addition to the vertical displacement (5). This uplift was likely an important factor contributing to the generation of the massive pulsating pattern of tsunami waves (2). 2 DECEMBER 2011 VOL 334 SCIENCE 1 Institute for Research on Earth Evolution (IFREE), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Natsushima-cho 2-15, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan. 2IFREE, JAMSTEC, Showa-machi 3173-25, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan. 3Earthquake and Tsunami Research Project for Disaster Prevention, JAMSTEC, Showa-machi 3173-25, Kanazawa-ku, Yokohama 236-0001, Japan. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] www.sciencemag.org Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on February 4, 2013 BREVIA www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/334/6060/1240/DC1 Supporting Online Material for The 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake: Displacement Reaching the Trench Axis Toshiya Fujiwara,* Shuichi Kodaira, Tetsuo No, Yuka Kaiho, Narumi Takahashi, Yoshiyuki Kaneda *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] Published 2 December 2011, Science 334, 1240 (2011) DOI: 10.1126/science.1211554 This PDF file includes: Materials and Methods Fig. S1 Table S1 References Materials and Methods Analysis Method The bathymetric data in 1999, 2004, and 2011 were collected using a SeaBeam 2112 with a 12 kHz frequency and a 2°×2° beam width. For analysis, we used only the data obtained by beams within a 45° swath width (Figs. 1C-E) among 120° swath width available (Fig. 1B) because these inner beam soundings have higher accuracy and less effects of errors in water column sound velocity. The RMS depth accuracy of the inner beam sounding is 0.2 % of water depth, and thus is 6-15 m in the 3000-7600 m depth in the study area. The sea surface height variation due to ocean tide, that is a possible error of the depth sounding, is estimated to be within ±50 cm (8). The beam footprint sizes, which affect the spatial resolutions along- and across-track directions, are ~100-250 m at these depths. However, the sounding sampling interval was rather short, ~40 m along track, at a survey speed of 4 knots. To compare different surveys with random sounding locations, the bathymetric data were gridded by using the Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) software (9). Continuous curvature surface gridding algorithm 'surface' and pre-processor filter 'blockmedian' were operated for the gridding. The data were gridded at a spacing of 0.025 arc-minute (finer than the mean spacing of the raw soundings) to avoid aliasing. Direct comparisons of absolute values of soundings were hampered by the differences of sound velocities in seawater used to calculate the water depths and by the uncertainty of ship position. To avoid the apparent offsets of locations from different surveys, a set of the gridded bathymetry data was horizontally shifted relative to the others so as to minimize the variance of depth differences (maximize the crosscorrelation of the bathymetry). Offsets were examined separately for the seaward and landward sides of the trench, because the seaward slope is thought to have suffered little change from the 2011 earthquake, whereas large displacements are likely in the outermost landward slope (143°34'E-143°57'E) after the earthquake (Fig. 1). The area near the trench axis was excluded from this analysis because the bathymetric change is clearly affected by probable landsliding (Figs. 1 and S1E). The offsets estimated on the seaward side are considered to be systematic errors for the entire area. Consequently, after subtraction of these systematic errors, the mean values of the change of seafloor elevation on the seaward side become zero, and the mean values of elevation change on the landward side should represent the average uplifts caused by the coseismic displacement of the 2011 earthquake (Fig. 1 and Table S1). The coseismic horizontal displacements on the landward slope were estimated by the amounts of horizontal shift relative to those on the seaward slope (Figs. S1A-S1C and Table S1). Note that there is 20 m dislocation in the northeast direction between the two datasets prior to the earthquake, although coseismic displacement is presumed to be absent (Fig. S1C). The offset may suggest uncertainty in our estimation of the amount of shift. The mean values of the elevation changes calculated after horizontal dislocations are interpreted as the coseismic vertical displacement of the landward plate. The difference between the vertical displacement and the observed seafloor elevation change is considered to be an additional uplift for a sloping seafloor (Fig. S1D). 2 Fig. S1. Contour maps showing standard deviations (~variances) of depth differences between different surveys for given shifted locations. (A) Comparison between 1999 and 2011 data, (B) comparison between 2004 and 2011 data, and (C) comparison between 2004 and 1999 data, respectively. Red and blue contours show standard deviations of the landward slope and the seaward slopes, respectively. Crosses indicate the minimum peaks of the standard deviations. Arrows show vectors of horizontal shifts from landward to seaward. (D) Schematic cross-section showing coseismic displacement. A sum of a vertical displacement and an additional uplift for a sloping seafloor correspond the observed seafloor elevation changes shown in Fig. 1. The inset is for illustrative purposes (not to scale). (E) Bathymetric cross section at the trench. Red and black indicate 2011 and 1999 data. 3 Table S1. Estimated coseismic displacements caused by the 11 March 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake in the outermost landward slope area, off Miyagi in the Tohoku district. 4 References and Notes 1. S. Ide, A. Baltay, G. C. Beroza, Shallow dynamic overshoot and energetic deep rupture in the 2011 Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. Science 332, 1426 (2011); 10.1126/science.1207020. doi:10.1126/science.1207020 Medline 2. T. Maeda, T. Furumura, S. Sakai, M. Shinohara, Significant tsunami observed at ocean-bottom pressure gauges during the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake. Earth Planets Space 63, 803 (2011). doi:10.5047/eps.2011.06.005 3. T. Tsuru et al., Along-arc structural variation of the plate boundary at the Japan Trench margin: Implication of interplate coupling. J. Geophys. Res. 107, 2357 (2002). doi:10.1029/2001JB001664 4. A. Ito et al., Bending of the subducting oceanic plate and its implication for rupture propagation of large interplate earthquakes off Miyagi, Japan, in the Japan Trench subduction zone. Geophys. Res. Lett. 32, L05310 (2005). doi:10.1029/2004GL022307 5. Material and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online. 6. M. Sato et al., Displacement above the hypocenter of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. Science 332, 1395 (2011); 10.1126/science.1207401. doi:10.1126/science.1207401 Medline 7. M. Kido et al., paper no. MIS036-P10 presented at Japan Geoscience Union Meeting 2011, 22 to 27 May 2011, Chiba, Japan. 8. Y. Ito et al., Frontal wedge deformation near the source region of the 2011 TohokuOki earthquake. Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L00G05 (2011). doi:10.1029/2011GL048355 9. P. Wessel, W. H. F. Smith, Free software helps map and display data. Eos Trans. AGU 72, 441 (1991). doi:10.1029/90EO00319 Displacement Above the Hypocenter of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake Mariko Sato,1* Tadashi Ishikawa,1 Naoto Ujihara,1 Shigeru Yoshida,1 Masayuki Fujita,1 Masashi Mochizuki,2 Akira Asada2 n 11 March 2011, a large interplate earthquake [moment magnitude (Mw) = 9.0] occurred at the plate boundary off Miyagi Prefecture, northeastern Japan. The focal region inferred from the distribution of aftershocks stretches about 500 km long and 200 km wide offshore (1). Various studies have been under way to understand the mechanism of occurrence of this earthquake. For example, the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan (GSI) has reported coseismic displacements on land, on the basis of the dense Global Positioning System (GPS) network (2). The largest displacement has been detected at the Oshika peninsula (Fig. 1), amounting to about 5 m toward east-southeast (ESE) and about 1 m downward. The GSI also estimated slip distribution on the plate boundary from the observed displacements, and the maximum slip was about 24 m near the hypocenter (2). Because the Oshika peninsula is located about 130 km away from the epicenter of the earthquake, it is preferable to measure crustal movements closer to the focal regions, that is, on the sea floor, to better constrain the focal mechanism of the event. In order to monitor crustal movements offshore, we have been carrying out sea-floor geodetic observations by using the GPS/acoustic combination technique (3–5) (fig. S1). Five sea-floor reference points were installed off the Tohoku region between 2000 and 2004 (Fig. 1) with campaign O observations carried out three times a year on average. The latest observations before the event were conducted in November 2010 at KAMS and KAMN and in February 2011 at MYGI, MYGW, and FUKU. After the event, we conducted observations at these sites for the period from 28 March to 5 April (6). Comparison between before and after the event yielded coseismic displacements of 5 to 24 m toward ESE and – 0.8 to 3 m upward (Fig. 1, table S1). In particular, at MYGI near the epicenter, we detected a huge coseismic displacement of about 24 m toward ESE and about 3 m upward. Observation errors after the event are somewhat large (up to 50 to 60 cm) compared with those in regular campaigns (up to several centimeters) (6). The observed displacements include any postseismic movements for about 20 days after the mainshock. They would also include coseismic displacements by foreshocks and aftershocks (1), some of which are large enough to affect these sites. However, a displacement caused by each of them is estimated to be a few tens of centimeters at most, and the total amount other than that of the coseismic signal by the mainshock is not larger than 1 m. Therefore, these data illustrate huge coseismic movements and its spatial variance by the mainshock just above the focal region. The horizontal movement at MYGI is more than four times larger than that detected on land and almost equal to the maximum slip on the plate boundary inferred from terrestrial measurements (2). Additionally, the horizontal displacement at KAMS, located about 70 km northeast of the epicenter, is as large as that at MYGI. Therefore, it is reasonable to interpret that the area where coseismic displacement is greater than 20 m spans at least 70 km. These results suggest that slip on the plate boundary near the trench exceeded the 20- to 30-m level estimated as a maximum by the terrestrial data (2), because slip on the plate boundary should be much larger than displacement of the sea floor. It is also evident that the up-down components of displacement at MYGI and MYGW show opposite polarity. Because the terrestrial data exhibit subsidence (2), the polar reversal of the vertical displacement from downward to upward expected from the upper plate rebound at the event occurred offshore. Thus, the hinge line corresponding to null displacement is located on the east side of MYGW. With only five observation sites, we may not be able to constrain the detailed feature of focal mechanism, but we believe that the coseismic displacements obtained offshore in this study will provide far better constraints than only the terrestrial data in inferring a fault model for this event. References and Notes 1. Japan Meteorological Agency, www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/ 2011_Earthquake.html (2011). 2. Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, www.gsi.go.jp/ cais/topic110421-index-e.html (2011). 3. A. Asada, T. Yabuki, Proc. Jpn. Acad. Ser. B 77, 7 (2001). 4. M. Fujita et al., Earth Planets Space 58, 265 (2006). 5. M. Sato et al., Geophys. Res. Lett. 38, L01312 (2011). 6. Materials and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online. Acknowledgments: We thank Y. Honkura for valuable comments and suggestions, O. L. Colombo for assistance with GPS software, and the GSI for providing us with the GPS data. The installation of MYGW was funded by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan. Averaged position data for the five stations are available in the supporting online material. Downloaded from www.sciencemag.org on February 4, 2013 BREVIA Supporting Online Material www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/science.1207401/DC1 Materials and Methods Fig. S1 Table S1 References 22 April 2011; accepted 11 May 2011 Published online 19 May 2011; 10.1126/science.1207401 Fig. 1. Horizontal (A) and vertical (B) coseismic displacements at the sea-floor reference points, associated with the 2011 Tohoku-Oki earthquake. Red squares and a yellow star show locations of sea-floor reference points and the epicenter, respectively. The position reference is Shimosato (an open triangle). www.sciencemag.org SCIENCE VOL 332 1 Hydrographic and Oceanographic Department, Japan Coast Guard, 5-3-1 Tsukiji, Chuo-ku, Tokyo 104-0045, Japan. 2Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8505, Japan. *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] 17 JUNE 2011 1395 www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/science.1207401/DC1 Supporting Online Material for Displacement Above the Hypocenter of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki Earthquake Mariko Sato,* Tadashi Ishikawa, Naoto Ujihara, Shigeru Yoshida, Masayuki Fujita, Masashi Mochizuki, Akira Asada *To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: [email protected] Published 19 May 2011 on Science Express DOI: 10.1126/science.1207401 This PDF file includes: Materials and Methods Fig. S1 Table S1 References Materials and Methods Seafloor geodetic observation A schematic picture of the seafloor geodetic observation system that we have developed is shown in Fig. S1. The system measures the ranges from the on-board transducer to the seafloor acoustic transponders through round-trip acoustic travel times, while simultaneously gathering kinematic GPS data. The vessel’s attitude is also measured on board by the dynamic motion sensor, which are used to determine the coordinates of the on-board transducer relative to those of the GPS antenna. By combining the round-trip travel time obtained by acoustic ranging and the positions of the GPS antenna at the moment of acoustic wave emission and reception, we determine the positions of the seafloor transponders. The positions of grouped transponders are finally averaged to a virtual position of the seafloor reference point. The methodology of our observation technique in detail was described in (4). Using this system, we conducted seafloor geodetic observations at five reference points (Fig. 1; Table S1) about 20 days after the mainshock. Although we acquire acoustic ranging data of about 5,000 shots at a single reference point in a regular campaign, only 1,200~4,000 shots were obtained in the observations after the event at each reference point to cover all the relevant reference points within our limited ship time. The position reference is Shimosato in central Japan (Fig. 1A), which is located about 800 km southwest of the epicenter of the Tohoku-oki earthquake. We determined positions of terrestrial GPS stations on the coast of Tohoku region, closer to the seafloor reference points, which were actually used as references for kinematic GPS analyses, from Shimosato’s reference coordinates. Although Shimosato was also affected by the earthquake, the co-seismic displacement has been observed to be a few centimeters, which is negligible in our present discussion. Observation errors of this technique are up to several centimeters in regular campaigns. However, for the observations after the earthquake, they are supposed to be about 10~20 cm at MYGI, MYGW and FUKU, and about 50~60 cm at KAMS and KAMN, which are inferred from determined relative positions between multiple transponders at each reference point in comparison with those in regular campaigns before the event. There are three possible causes for this deterioration. First, the number of shots for acoustic ranging at each reference point was fewer than those in regular campaigns as mentioned above. Second, some transponders could have slipped by the strong impact exerted by the earthquake. And lastly, there could have been a local deformation within an array of transponders at each reference point. 2 GPS Antenna Survey Vessel Motion Sensor Acoustic Transducer XBT XCTD CTD Seafloor Stations (Mirror Transponders) Fig. S1. Schematic picture of the seafloor geodetic observation system consisting of four acoustic mirror-type transponders at the seafloor and one GPS antenna/receiver, one undersea acoustic transducer and one dynamic motion sensor on-board. A set of four acoustic transponders has been placed on the seafloor at each reference point to form a square whose corners are directed to the north, south, east and west, with a length of the diagonal approximately equal to the mean water depth in the area. 3 Table S1. Estimated coordinates of seafloor reference points before and after the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake. The coordinates are the averaged positions of grouped transponders. Site name KAMN KAMS MYGI MYGW FUKU Observation date 11/16/2010 4/3/2011 11/19/2010 4/5/2011 2/21/2011 3/28/2011 2/21/2011 3/27/2011 2/23/2011 3/29/2011 ° 38 38 38 38 38 38 38 38 37 37 Latitude ′ ″ 53 16.740 53 16.551 38 11.271 38 10.981 4 51.388 4 51.051 8 55.897 8 55.734 9 58.002 9 57.948 ° 143 143 143 143 142 142 142 142 142 142 Longitude ′ ″ 21 43.869 21 44.443 15 48.021 15 48.893 54 59.881 55 0.788 25 59.327 25 59.919 4 51.233 4 51.412 Height m -2306.51 -2304.90 -2193.21 -2191.72 -1645.83 -1642.69 -1044.71 -1045.49 -1209.47 -1208.61 4 References 1. Japan Meteorological Agency, http://www.jma.go.jp/jma/en/2011_Earthquake.html (2011). 2. Geospatial Information Authority of Japan, http://www.gsi.go.jp/cais/topic110421-indexe.html (2011). 3. A. Asada. T. Yabuki, Proc. Jpn. Acad. Ser. B, 77, 7 (2001). 4. M. Fujita, T. Ishikawa, M. Mochizuki, M. Sato, S. Toyama, M. Katayama, K. Kawai, Y. Matsumoto, T. Yabuki, A. Asada, O. L. Colombo, Earth Planets Space, 58, 265 (2006). 5. M. Sato, H. Saito, T. Ishikawa, Y. Matsumoto, M. Fujita, M. Mochizuki, A. Asada, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L01312, doi:10.1029/2010GL045689 (2011).
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