The spatial distributions of shallow slow earthquakes are related to stress accumulation and structural characteristics of the shallow plate boundary, which are important for understanding megathrust earthquakes. To investigate spatiotemporal variation of shallow very low frequency earthquake (SVLFE) activity along the Nankai Trough, we conducted centroid moment tensor inversion method incorporating effects of offshore heterogeneous structures. By applying centroid moment tensor method into long‐term onshore seismograms, we obtained spatiotemporal variation of SVLFE activity occurred from June 2003 to May 2018. We find that SVLFE activities are related to the spatial variations of the slip‐deficit rate and pore fluid around the Philippine Sea plate boundary. SVLFEs are effectively activated by mechanical weakening due to rich pore fluid in areas surrounding strongly locked zones. Our results imply that spatial variations of long‐term SVLFE activity provide information on tectonic environments, which could constrain the rupture behavior of shallow plate boundaries during future megathrust earthquakes.
In southwest Japan, great earthquakes have occurred on the plate interface along the Nankai trough with a recurrence time of approximately 100 years. Most previous studies estimated slip deficits on the seismogenic zone from interseismic Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) velocity data assuming slip‐response functions for an elastic medium. The observed surface velocities, however, include effects of viscoelastic relaxation in the asthenosphere caused by slip motion associated with seismic cycles. If the elastic responses cannot adequately approximate the deformation of the viscoelastic medium, the results of an inversion analysis could be biased. If the recurrence interval is greater than the effective relaxation time in the elastic‐viscoelastic layered structure, we were able to formulate an inverse problem for the estimation of slip‐deficit rates from GNSS velocity data with completely relaxed slip‐response functions for a later stage of the seismic cycle. Analyzing surface velocity data from GNSS daily coordinate data between March 2005 and February 2011 together with seafloor geodetic data, we estimated the slip‐deficit rate distribution by the strain data inversion method. There were significant differences between the results using elastic and completely relaxed responses. Although the result with elastic responses shows a high coupling zone in the coastal region, it was located trenchward when completely relaxed responses were used. We found that the peak slip‐deficit rate increases as the thickness of the lithosphere becomes thinner. Moreover, we succeeded in appropriately separating elastic‐viscoelastic deformation due to plate coupling from rigid block motion.
The spatiotemporal characteristics of shallow slow earthquake activity are linked to the tectonic environments of shallow plate boundaries. In this work, the spatiotemporal variations of shallow very low frequency earthquake (SVLFE) activity along the Nankai Trough were investigated using a cross‐correlation analysis. The SVLFEs migrated or spread eastward along the strike direction of the trench during large SVLFE episodes. Migrations and clusters of SVLFEs suggest the occurrence of shallow slow slip events. The observed lateral variations in SVLFE activity patterns reflect the heterogeneous distributions of effective strengths at the shallow plate boundary along the Nankai Trough. Migrations and clusters of SVLFEs tended to be concentrated in the regions surrounding the stress accumulation peaks on the Philippine Sea Plate boundary. The stress accumulated in the transitional regions between high‐strength and low‐strength zones can be released by shallow slow earthquakes.
SUMMARY Due to complex 3-D heterogeneous structures, conventional 1-D analysis techniques using onshore seismograms can yield incorrect estimation of earthquake source parameters, especially dip angles and centroid depths of offshore earthquakes. Combining long-term onshore seismic observations and numerical simulations of seismic wave propagation in a 3-D model, we conducted centroid moment tensor (CMT) inversions of earthquakes along the Nankai Trough between April 2004 and August 2019 to evaluate decade-scale seismicity. Green's functions for CMT inversions of earthquakes with moment magnitudes of 4.3–6.5 were evaluated using finite-difference method simulations of seismic wave propagation in the regional 3-D velocity structure model. Significant differences of focal mechanisms and centroid depths between previous 1-D and our 3-D catalogues were found in the solutions of offshore earthquakes. By introducing the 3-D structures of the low-velocity accretionary prism and the Philippine Sea Plate, dip angles and centroid depths for offshore earthquakes were well-constrained. Teleseismic CMT also provides robust solutions, but our regional 3-D CMT could provide better constraints of dip angles. Our 3-D CMT catalogue and published slow earthquake catalogues depicted spatial distributions of slip behaviours on the plate boundary along the Nankai Trough. The regular and slow interplate earthquakes were separately distributed, with these distributions reflecting the heterogeneous distribution of effective strengths along the Nankai Trough plate boundary. By comparing the spatial distribution of seismic slip on the plate boundary with the slip-deficit rate distribution, regions with strong coupling were clearly identified.
Slow earthquakes are mainly distributed in the vicinity of seismogenic zones of megathrust earthquakes and relationships between both types of earthquakes are expected. We examined the activity of very low frequency earthquakes (VLFEs), classified as one type of slow earthquake, around Japan because they have the potential to clarify detailed spatiotemporal slip behaviors at the plate boundaries. The distribution of the shallow VLFE activity rate is heterogeneous along trench axes and exhibits an anticorrelation relationship with the spatial distribution of the interplate coupling ratio, whereas deep VLFEs are distributed only in weakly coupled areas, and the spatial variation of the activity rate is small. Furthermore, VLFEs are mainly hosted by low seismic velocity anomalies. Thus, slow earthquakes can be triggered by decreased effective stress due to the high pore fluid pressure within regions with weak interplate coupling, and their activity can be an indicator of interplate slip behavior.
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