We report on the very-low-frequency earthquakes occurring in the transition zone of the subducting plate interface along the Nankai subduction zone in southwest Japan. Seismic waves generated by very-low-frequency earthquakes with seismic moment magnitudes of 3.1 to 3.5 predominantly show a long period of about 20 seconds. The seismicity of very-low-frequency earthquakes accompanies and migrates with the activity of deep low-frequency tremors and slow slip events. The coincidence of these three phenomena improves the detection and characterization of slow earthquakes, which are thought to increase the stress on updip megathrust earthquake rupture zones.

Episodic slow slip events have been recognized by means of tilt changes in the western Shikoku area, southwest Japan. The crustal tilt deformation was observed repeatedly with a recurrence interval of approximately six months coincident with the occurrences of major non‐volcanic deep tremor activities in this area. Observed tilt changes can be explained by slow slip events occurring around the source area of tremors. In each episode, the source of the slow slip event and tremor migrate simultaneously. The spatial and temporal coincidence of tremors and slow slip events indicates that they both may be coupling phenomena reflecting the stress accumulation process at the subducting plate.

Abstract. We report a "slow thrust slip event" that occurred beneath the Bungo Channel region, southwestern Japan. On Oct. and Dec., 1996, two Hyuganada earthquakes (both Mw = 6.7), followed by afterslips, occurred. In addition, a crustal nlovement characterized by an extremely slow rise was observed around the Bungo Channel, about 200 km north from the epicenters, and continued for about 300 days long. Assuming a slow slip on the plate boundary, we estimate its duration and surface disI)lacements fi'om G PS time series data by curve-fitting, and then, determine the fault slip distribution. We found that a slow slip without any earthquakes continued for nearly one year and released the seismic moment comI)arable to that of the Hyuganada earthquakes. Occurrence of the slow thrust slip event suggests that this kind of event may be a characteristic mode of stress release at a transition region of interplate coupling.

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 highsensitivity 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.

We estimated centroid moment tensors of earthquakes that occurred from 2003 to 2011 in and around the focal area of the 2011 M w 9.0 megathrust earthquake in eastern Japan. The result indicates that earthquakes occurring before the mainshock, which included foreshocks off Miyagi, were basically interplate earthquakes with thrusttype focal mechanisms. On the other hand, the aftershocks exhibited a variety of focal mechanisms. Interplate aftershocks with thrust focal mechanisms did not occur within the large coseismic slip area estimated from GPS data but instead occurred in the surrounding regions. This implies that slip could no longer occur in the coseismic slip area due to the large amount of stress release during the mainshock rupture, whereas the aftershocks in the surrounding regions were caused by a stress concentration in these regions due to the large co-seismic slip associated with the mainshock asperity. Normal-fault-type aftershocks were widely distributed in the overriding plate and the outer-rise of the Pacific Plate. These aftershocks may have been due to a tensional stress change caused by the coseismic slip. Thrust-fault-type aftershocks in the subducting Pacific Plate were also interpreted as being due to compressional stress change as a result of the coseismic slip.

Short‐term slow slip events accompanied by nonvolcanic deep low‐frequency tremors and deep very low frequency earthquakes in southwest Japan were investigated systematically by means of ground tilting studies. The change in tilt usually lasts for several days. By using a genetic algorithm and a least squares method, we inverted the data for tilt steps that were caused by slow slip events and were detected by at least four stations situated near the source of the tremor. Fault parameters were estimated for 54 slow slip episodes that occurred mainly in the western Shikoku, northeastern Kii, and Tokai regions from 2001 to 2008. In eastern Shikoku, two slow slip episodes were detected quantitatively for the first time. The fault geometries of all the slow slip events were located within the belt‐like distribution of tremors in the transition zone between the locked and aseismic slip zones at the plate interface of the subducting Philippine Sea Plate. The spatial extent of the fault geometry corresponds roughly to the distribution of clusters of nonvolcanic tremors and very low frequency earthquakes. The moment magnitudes ranged from 5.4 to 6.2, and the slip was ∼1 cm for each slow slip event. The rate of moment release by the detected slow slip events was 40–60% of the moment accumulation expected from the relative plate motion, and it showed regional differences. They may reflect the along‐strike variations in plate convergence and/or the characteristic size of the slow slip fault plane on the plate interface.

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[1] Slow slip events (SSEs) occur in the deeper extents of areas where large interplate earthquakes are expected in subduction zones, such as the Nankai region of Japan and the Cascadia region of North America. In the Nankai region, SSEs are divided into long-and short-term SSEs, depending on their duration and recurrence interval. We modeled and examined the occurrence of long-and short-term SSEs and changes in their behavior during the seismic cycles of large interplate earthquakes. In these numerical simulations we adopted a rate-and state-dependent friction law with cutoff velocities and assumed that the distribution of pore fluid controls the recurrence interval of both long-and short-term SSEs. The recurrence intervals of reproduced short-term SSEs decrease during a long-term SSE, as observed in western Shikoku, in the Nankai region. The recurrence intervals of both types of SSEs become shorter in the later stages of interseismic periods. Large interplate earthquakes nucleate between the region where SSEs occur and the locked region of the large earthquakes, as suggested from observations of the 1944 Tonankai earthquake. Our numerical results suggest that the stress buildup process in a seismic cycle affects the recurrence behavior of SSEs.Citation: Matsuzawa, T., H. Hirose, B. Shibazaki, and K. Obara (2010), Modeling short-and long-term slow slip events in the seismic cycles of large subduction earthquakes,