Geoengineering and Seismological Aspects of the Niigata-Ken Chuetsu-Oki Earthquake of 16 July 2007

Abstract

The M6.6 Niigata-Ken Chuetsu-Oki earthquake of 16 July 2007 occurred off the west coast of Japan with a focal depth of 10 km, immediately west of Kashiwazaki City and Kariwa Village in southern Niigata Prefecture. Peak horizontal ground accelerations of 0.68 g were measured in Kashiwazaki City, as well as at the reactor floor level of the world’s largest nuclear reactor, located on the coast at Kariwa Village. Liquefaction of historic and modern river deposits, aeolian dune sand, and manmade fill was widespread in the coastal region nearest the epicenter and caused ground deformations that damaged bridges, embankments, roadways, buildings, ports, railways and utilities. Landslides along the coast of southern Niigata Prefecture and in mountainous regions inland of Kashiwazaki were also widespread affecting transportation infrastructure. Liquefaction and a landslide also damaged the nuclear power plant sites. This paper, along with a companion digital map database available at http://walrus.wr.usgs.gov/infobank/n/nii07jp/html/n-ii-07-jp.sites.kmz, describes the seismological and geo-engineering aspects of the event.

Near-source effects and non-linear site response at Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant, in the 2007 Chuetsu-Oki earthquake: evidence from surface and downhole records and 1D numerical simulations

“…Circles indicate the extracted pulse fulfills criteria CT1 and CT2 (mentioned in this paragraph), d polar plot portraying the angles at which pulses were extracted, with respect to the fault-normal (FN) and fault-parallel directions (FP). The angle corresponds to the one that provides the highest PI Kayen et al 2009;Aochi et al 2013). Estimated azimuth values are coherent with the observed tectonic mechanisms.…”

Fragility Functions for Bridges in Liquefaction-Induced Lateral Spreads

“…However, the abutments permanently rotated and deformed toward the center of the bridge by about 0.25 m at the pile cap level, which is likely sufficient to render significant damage. This deformation mechanism is consistent with the bridge deformation mechanism observed at several bridges in Kashiwazaki following the 2007 Niigata Chuetsu-Oki earthquake (Kayen et. al.…”

Resilience assessment framework for critical infrastructure in a multi-hazard environment: Case study on transport assets

“…Such types of cascading hazards have been extensively observed in past events, including the widespread damage to transport infrastructure due to liquefaction and landslides after the 2007 Niigata -ken Chuetsu Oki earthquake in Japan (Kayen et al, 2009) or the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China (Tang et al, 2011). The effects of cascading hazards to infrastructure performance have been studied by Brandenberg et al (2011) and Aygün et al (2011) for bridges exposed to liquefaction caused by earthquake shaking, and by Omidvar and Kivi (2016) for gas pipelines under earthquake, liquefaction and fire following the earthquake.…”