Structure of the tsunamigenic plate boundary and low-frequency earthquakes in the southern Ryukyu Trench

Ryuta Arai (), Tsutomu Takahashi, Shuichi Kodaira, Yuka Kaiho, Ayako Nakanishi, Gou Fujie, Yasuyuki Nakamura, Yojiro Yamamoto, Yasushi Ishihara, Seiichi Miura and Yoshiyuki Kaneda
Additional contact information
Ryuta Arai: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Tsutomu Takahashi: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Shuichi Kodaira: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Yuka Kaiho: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Ayako Nakanishi: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Gou Fujie: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Yasuyuki Nakamura: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Yojiro Yamamoto: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Yasushi Ishihara: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Seiichi Miura: Research and Development Center for Earthquake and Tsunami, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology
Yoshiyuki Kaneda: Institute of Education, Research and Regional Cooperation for Crisis Management Shikoku, Kagawa University

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract It has been recognized that even weakly coupled subduction zones may cause large interplate earthquakes leading to destructive tsunamis. The Ryukyu Trench is one of the best fields to study this phenomenon, since various slow earthquakes and tsunamis have occurred; yet the fault structure and seismic activity there are poorly constrained. Here we present seismological evidence from marine observation for megathrust faults and low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs). On the basis of passive observation we find LFEs occur at 15–18 km depths along the plate interface and their distribution seems to bridge the gap between the shallow tsunamigenic zone and the deep slow slip region. This suggests that the southern Ryukyu Trench is dominated by slow earthquakes at any depths and lacks a typical locked zone. The plate interface is overlaid by a low-velocity wedge and is accompanied by polarity reversals of seismic reflections, indicating fluids exist at various depths along the plate interface.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12255 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms12255

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms12255

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().