We retrospectively analyzed the temporal and spatial variations of four different physical parameters characterizing the state of the atmosphere and ionosphere several days before the M9 Tohoku, Japan earthquake of Ma...We retrospectively analyzed the temporal and spatial variations of four different physical parameters characterizing the state of the atmosphere and ionosphere several days before the M9 Tohoku, Japan earthquake of March 11, 2011. The data include outgoing long wave radiation (OLR), GPS/TEC, lower Earth orbit ionospheric tomography and critical frequency foF2. Our first results show that on March 7th a rapid increase of emitted infrared radiation was observed from the satellite data and an anomaly developed near the epicenter. The GPS/TEC data indicate an increase and variation in electron density reaching a maximum value on March 8. Starting from this day in the lower ionosphere also there was confirmed an abnormal TEC variation over the epicenter. From March 3 to 11 a large increase in electron concentration was recorded at all four Japanese ground-based ionosondes, which returned to normal after the main earthquake. The joint preliminary analysis of atmospheric and ionospheric parameters during the M9 Tohoku, Japan earthquake has revealed the presence of related variations of these parameters implying their connection with the earthquake process. This study may lead to a better understanding of the response of the atmosphere/ionosphere to the great Tohoku earthquake.展开更多
Teleseismic and GPS data were jointly inverted for the rupture process of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. The inversion results show that it is a bilateral rupture event with an average rupture velocity less than 2.0 km/s...Teleseismic and GPS data were jointly inverted for the rupture process of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. The inversion results show that it is a bilateral rupture event with an average rupture velocity less than 2.0 km/s along the fault strike direction. The source rupture process consists of three sub-events, the first oc- curred near the hypocenter and the rest two ruptured along the up-dip direction and broke the sea bed, causing a maximum slip of about 30 m. The large-scale sea bed breakage may account for the tremendous tsunami disaster which resulted in most of the death and missing in this mega earthquake.展开更多
Earthquake engineering research and development have received much attention since the first half of the twentieth century. This valuable research presented a huge step forward in understanding earthquake hazard mitig...Earthquake engineering research and development have received much attention since the first half of the twentieth century. This valuable research presented a huge step forward in understanding earthquake hazard mitigation,which resulted in appreciable reduction of the effects of past earthquakes. Nevertheless,the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and the subsequent tsunami resulted in major damage. This paper presents the timeline of earthquake mitigation and recovery,as seen by the authors. Possible research directions where the authors think that many open questions still remain are identified. These are primarily based on the important lessons learned from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.展开更多
The Tohoku megathrust earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011 and had an epicenter that was 70 km east of Tohoku, Japan, resulted in an estimated ten′s of billions of dollars in damage and a death toll of more t...The Tohoku megathrust earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011 and had an epicenter that was 70 km east of Tohoku, Japan, resulted in an estimated ten′s of billions of dollars in damage and a death toll of more than 15 thousand lives, yet few studies have documented key spatio-temporal seismogenic characteristics. Specifically, the temporal decay of aftershock activity, the number of strong aftershocks (with magnitudes greater than or equal to 7.0), the magnitude of the greatest aftershock, and area of possible aftershocks. Forecasted results from this study are based on Gutenberg-Richter’s relation, Bath’s law, Omori’s law, and Well’s relation of rupture scale utilizing the magnitude and statistical parameters of earthquakes in USA and China (Landers, Northridge, Hector Mine, San Simeon and Wenchuan earthquakes). The number of strong aftershocks, the parameters of Gutenberg-Richter’s relation, and the modified form of Omori’s law are confirmed based on the aftershock sequence data from the Mw9.0 Tohoku earthquake. Moreover, for a large earthquake, the seismogenic structure could be a fault, a fault system, or an intersection of several faults. The seismogenic structure of the earthquake suggests that the event occurred on a thrust fault near the Japan trench within the overriding plate that subsequently triggered three or more active faults producing large aftershocks.展开更多
The Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake that hit the mainland Japan on 11 th March, 2011 had resulted a devastating Tsunami due to an active thrusting between the Pacific and the North American Plates. Static and kinematic o...The Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake that hit the mainland Japan on 11 th March, 2011 had resulted a devastating Tsunami due to an active thrusting between the Pacific and the North American Plates. Static and kinematic offsets at the offshore epicentre of the Mw 9.0 event remain unanswered and being investigated along with their near and far field limiting distances from the epicentre. Accordingly, offset measurements from 60 continuously operating IGS and GEONET GNSS stations were radially classified from the epicentre and interpreted with analytical models to find their linear offset decay rates. Co-and post-seismic static positional anomaly offsets of sixty days show almost all near field stations had strong or appreciable eastward or south eastward static shifts. Near stations(<250 km) showed both kinematic and static offsets. GEONET station ’0175’ showed maximum resultant static offset of-4.5 m, which diminishes approximately 1-2 cm at far sites like SMST and AIRA. Characteristic decay duration(’b’) of the mean kinematic co-seismic shift(’a’)of near field stations was 17.28 s during earthquake hours with an EW component shift >1.5 m. Spatial models of projected N-S static and kinematic offsets show their asymmetrical distributions around the epicentre with maximum model offset of-1.84 m displaced towards south at-45 km north of the epicentre. The Tohoku-Oki earthquake produced a resultant kinematic offset of-10.2 m towards East at its offshore epicentre;while the estimated near field static offset is ~9.82 m. However, both estimates are bigger than double the resultant offset measured value(~4.3 m) in the Japanese mainland using GPS. The difference in the kinematic and static near field offsets highlight that the near surface had elastic or in-elastic kinematic strain dissipation as against the lithospheric level viscoelastic static response, which resulted rapid kinematic strain release(1.12 cm/km)within the limiting radius of ~220 km from the Tohoku-Oki epicentre.展开更多
This thesis discusses the earthquake reflecting ability of the observation well pattern system of Jiangsu Province, China, which has been digitally renovated, and probes into the cause of the major differences in the ...This thesis discusses the earthquake reflecting ability of the observation well pattern system of Jiangsu Province, China, which has been digitally renovated, and probes into the cause of the major differences in the earthquake reflecting abilities of well holes at different measurement points. This is achieved through the analysis of the co-seismic responses to the Wenchuan (2008; Ms8.0, China) and Tohoku (2011; Ms9.0, Japan) earthquakes. We found that the co-seismic response of water level from regional well holes in Jiangsu Province was stronger than that of water temperature. The water-level co-seismic response follows a consistent law and is closely related to the earthquake magnitude. The co-seismic response of water temperature strongly varied among well points, and was more often manifested as a slow restorative change. The co-seismic responses also varied based on tectonic elements. The response in central and northern Jiangsu was weaker than that of southern Jiangsu, possibly due to the thicker loess cover layer in central Jiangsu which makes it less effective at capturing the micro-changes of stress-strain states relative to the hilly land in the south. The more complicated geological structure in southern Jiangsu makes it contribute to greater changes in the state of underground water after a minor disturbance.展开更多
The earthquake of March 11 of magnitude 9 offshore Tohoku, Japan, was followed by a tsunami wave with particularly destructive impact, over a coastal area extending approx. 850km along the Pacific Coast of Honshu Isla...The earthquake of March 11 of magnitude 9 offshore Tohoku, Japan, was followed by a tsunami wave with particularly destructive impact, over a coastal area extending approx. 850km along the Pacific Coast of Honshu Island. First arrival times and measurements and maximum height were recorded by the Japanese monitoring system (wherever there was no failure of the equipment). The maximum run-up is well evident in satellite images available through USGS, Google and other institutes. Moreover, personal observations of Prof. Lekkas were made during a field survey in March 2011. The results of the study of the tsunami impact and run-up show the variety of factors affecting the run-up, creating zones with similar phenomena, but also specific locations where run-up exceeds by far the run-up zone maximum values. This differentiation, observed also in the past by other authors, is here attributed to the general orientation of the coast, the distance from the tsunami generation area, bathymetry offshore, the coastline morphology and land geomorphology. In certain cases that funnelling and reflection effects in narrow gulfs parallel to the tsunami propagation vector were combined with narrow valleys onshore, peak run-up exceeded 20m, or even 40 m (Miyagi coastline, Ogatsu, Onagawa, etc).展开更多
The greatest earthquake in the modern history of Japan and probably the fourth greatest in the last 100 years in the world occurred on March 11, 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku.Large tsunami and ground motions ca...The greatest earthquake in the modern history of Japan and probably the fourth greatest in the last 100 years in the world occurred on March 11, 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku.Large tsunami and ground motions caused severe damage in wide areas, particularly many towns along the Pacific coast. So far, gravity change caused by such a great earthquake has been reported for the 1964 Alaska and the 2010 Maule events. However, the spatial-temporal resolution of the gravity data for these cases is insufficient to depict a co-seismic gravity field variation in a spatial scale of a plate subduction zone. Here, we report an unequivocal co-seismic gravity change over the Japanese Island, obtained from a hybrid gravity observation(combined absolute and relative gravity measurements). The time interval of the observation before and after the earthquake is within 1 year at almost all the observed sites, including 13 absolute and 16 relative measurement sites, which deduced tectonic and environmental contributions to the gravity change. The observed gravity agrees well with the result calculated by a dislocation theory based on a self-gravitating and layered spherical earth model. In this computation, a co-seismic slip distribution is determined by an inversion of Global Positioning System(GPS) data. Of particular interest is that the observed gravity change in some area is negative where a remarkable subsidence is observed by GPS, which can not be explained by simple vertical movement of the crust. This indicated that the mass redistribution in the underground affects the gravity change. This result supports the result that Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment(GRACE) satellites detected a crustal dilatation due to the 2004 Sumatra earthquake by the terrestrial observation with a higher spatial and temporal resolution.展开更多
During the Mw9 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, gradual increases in both ionosphere total electron content (TEC) and geomagnetic declination signals were observed, starting from ~40 minutes before the mainshock, followed by im...During the Mw9 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, gradual increases in both ionosphere total electron content (TEC) and geomagnetic declination signals were observed, starting from ~40 minutes before the mainshock, followed by impulsive enhancements ~10 minutes after the mainshock. There have been many studies on pre-seismic TEC enhancements, including their characteristics, debates regarding whether TEC anomalies are real signals or artefacts, and the explainable models, and many studies have reported that the impulsive TEC enhancement was caused by a tsunami-induced neutral atmospheric gravity wave. Since TEC and geomagnetic declination anomalies were synchronized so that their origin should be attributed to the same seismic activities, any models must explain both anomalous phenomena, but not the case considered herein. Compared with the corresponding TEC anomalies, we re-examined the characteristics of geomagnetic variation just before and after the mainshock, focusing on the generation process of the impulsive enhancement immediately after the mainshock. We showed that the observed anomaly could be explained if there are quasi-static electric currents of 20 - 30 kA generated near the epicentre area. The possible mechanism of the current generation is discussed in terms of the ionization process in the atmosphere near the sea surface.展开更多
Using Computerized Ionospheric Tomography (CIT) in combination with GPS observations from the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC), this study reconstructed the electron density distributions ove...Using Computerized Ionospheric Tomography (CIT) in combination with GPS observations from the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC), this study reconstructed the electron density distributions over China before the 2011 Tohoku Mw 9.0 earthquake and discovered a prominent ionospheric anomaly on March 8, 2011. Analysis of the solar-terrestrial space environment around the time of the Tohoku earthquake indicated that the March 8 ionospheric anomaly was likely related to the earthquake. Finally, the paper discusses the drift of the ionospheric anomaly, which was inferred from the anomaly being observed by GPS reference sites in China.展开更多
An inversion method was applied to crustal earthquakes dataset to find S-wave attenuation characteristics beneath the Eastern Tohoku region of Japan. Accelerograms from 85 shallow crustal earthquakes up to 25 km depth...An inversion method was applied to crustal earthquakes dataset to find S-wave attenuation characteristics beneath the Eastern Tohoku region of Japan. Accelerograms from 85 shallow crustal earthquakes up to 25 km depth and magnitude range between 3.5 and 5.5 were analyzed to estimate the seismic quality factor Qs. A homogeneous attenuation model Qs for the wave propagation path was evaluated from spectral amplitudes, at 24 different frequencies between 0.5 and 20 Hz by using generalized inversion technique. To do this, non-parametric attenuation functions were calculated to observe spectral amplitude decay with hypocentral distance. Then, these functions were parameterized to estimate Qs. It was found that in Eastern Tohoku region, the Qs frequency dependence can be approximated with the function 33 f 1.22 within a frequency range between 0.5 and 20 Hz. However, the frequency dependence of Qs in the frequency range between 0.5 and 6 Hz is best approximated by Qs (f) = 36 f 0.94 showing relatively weaker frequency dependence as compared to the relation Qs (f) = 6 f^ 2.09 for the frequency range between 6 and 15 Hz. These results could be used to estimate source and site parameters for seismic hazard assessment in the region.展开更多
Aftershocks of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki great earthquake have a wide range of focal depths and fault plane mechanisms. We constrain the focal depths and focal mechanisms of 69 aftershocks with Mw 〉 5.4 by modeling the wav...Aftershocks of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki great earthquake have a wide range of focal depths and fault plane mechanisms. We constrain the focal depths and focal mechanisms of 69 aftershocks with Mw 〉 5.4 by modeling the waveforms of teleseismic P and its trailing near-surface reflections pP and sP. We find that the "thrust events" are within 10 krn from the plate interface. The dip angles of these thrust events increase with depth from ~ 5~ to ~ 25~. The "non-thrust events" vary from 60 km above to 40 km below the plate interface. Normal and strike-slip events within the overriding plate point to redistribution of stress following the primary great earthquake; however, due to the spatially variable stress change in the Tohoku-Oki earthquake, an understanding of how the mainshock affected the stresses that led to the aftershocks requires accurate knowledge of the aftershock location.展开更多
Frequency-dependent rupture behavior of sub- duction zone interplate megathrust faults has been observed by back-projection method in different frequency bands (from 0.05 to 5 Hz). It has been suggested that the dow...Frequency-dependent rupture behavior of sub- duction zone interplate megathrust faults has been observed by back-projection method in different frequency bands (from 0.05 to 5 Hz). It has been suggested that the down-dip region of the Tohoku megathrust radiated strongly at high frequencies (〉10 Hz) compared with that of the up-dip region. By assuming the same source tirne function of each fault patch, we perform a synthetic sensitivity analysis to compare the energy received from the shallower parts (and further way from the receiver sites) with that frona the deeper parts (and closer to the receiver sites) of the rupture. Our results indicate that regional onshore recordings are probably not adequate to constrain the presence of far-off shore high frequency radiations because of the strong attenuation of this region.展开更多
This paper describes the dynamic characteristics of a damaged nine story building in Sendal during the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Dynamic hysteresis characteristic is investigated. The system identification using the ext...This paper describes the dynamic characteristics of a damaged nine story building in Sendal during the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Dynamic hysteresis characteristic is investigated. The system identification using the extended Kalman filter determined the amplitude dependency of natural frequency and damping factor, which are consistent with damage feature. Occurrence of partial uplifting in the transverse direction is suggested by the induced higher harmonics based on the wavelet analysis. Historical change of the amplitude dependent dynamic characteristics is also discussed based on the long-term monitoring data from microtremor level to strong motion level.展开更多
Damage caused by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake (Mw 9.0) to transmission and distribution pipelines in Sendai City is summarized. The locations of the pipeline repairs are discussed relative to earthquake intensity, geo...Damage caused by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake (Mw 9.0) to transmission and distribution pipelines in Sendai City is summarized. The locations of the pipeline repairs are discussed relative to earthquake intensity, geomorphologic conditions and landform change in the developed areas of hilly land. Repair rate (repairs/km) is summarized according to pipe material and presence or absence of artificial landform change. The following findings were obtained: (1) More than 80% of the repairs took place in pipelines installed in higher lands such as hill and terrace areas consisting of hard soils; (2) Nearly all the pipe repairlocations in hill areas are where landform change was made through land development tor residential purposes over me past several decades; (3) The aforementioned repair rate was more than 3.6 times than that of other lowland areas where no landform change occurred. The heaviest concentrations of pipe repairs of vinyl chloride pipes and ductile iron pipes were observed within the boundary area between cutting and filling, having a thickness between -2.5 m and 2.5 m. Approximately 78% of the all pipe repairs occurred outside of areas where severe ground failures took place. A mechanism of pipe damage in the areas free of severe ground failure was discussed.展开更多
基金NASA Goddard Space Flight Center,Chapman University and European Framework program #7 project PREEARTHQUAKE for their kind support
文摘We retrospectively analyzed the temporal and spatial variations of four different physical parameters characterizing the state of the atmosphere and ionosphere several days before the M9 Tohoku, Japan earthquake of March 11, 2011. The data include outgoing long wave radiation (OLR), GPS/TEC, lower Earth orbit ionospheric tomography and critical frequency foF2. Our first results show that on March 7th a rapid increase of emitted infrared radiation was observed from the satellite data and an anomaly developed near the epicenter. The GPS/TEC data indicate an increase and variation in electron density reaching a maximum value on March 8. Starting from this day in the lower ionosphere also there was confirmed an abnormal TEC variation over the epicenter. From March 3 to 11 a large increase in electron concentration was recorded at all four Japanese ground-based ionosondes, which returned to normal after the main earthquake. The joint preliminary analysis of atmospheric and ionospheric parameters during the M9 Tohoku, Japan earthquake has revealed the presence of related variations of these parameters implying their connection with the earthquake process. This study may lead to a better understanding of the response of the atmosphere/ionosphere to the great Tohoku earthquake.
基金financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 90915012 and 41090291)the Research Project in Earthquake Science, CEA (No.201108002)
文摘Teleseismic and GPS data were jointly inverted for the rupture process of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake. The inversion results show that it is a bilateral rupture event with an average rupture velocity less than 2.0 km/s along the fault strike direction. The source rupture process consists of three sub-events, the first oc- curred near the hypocenter and the rest two ruptured along the up-dip direction and broke the sea bed, causing a maximum slip of about 30 m. The large-scale sea bed breakage may account for the tremendous tsunami disaster which resulted in most of the death and missing in this mega earthquake.
文摘Earthquake engineering research and development have received much attention since the first half of the twentieth century. This valuable research presented a huge step forward in understanding earthquake hazard mitigation,which resulted in appreciable reduction of the effects of past earthquakes. Nevertheless,the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and the subsequent tsunami resulted in major damage. This paper presents the timeline of earthquake mitigation and recovery,as seen by the authors. Possible research directions where the authors think that many open questions still remain are identified. These are primarily based on the important lessons learned from the 2011 Tohoku earthquake.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51278474)Special Research Project of Earthquake Engineering (No. 201108003)International Science and Technology Cooperation Program of China (No. 2011DFA21460)
文摘The Tohoku megathrust earthquake, which occurred on March 11, 2011 and had an epicenter that was 70 km east of Tohoku, Japan, resulted in an estimated ten′s of billions of dollars in damage and a death toll of more than 15 thousand lives, yet few studies have documented key spatio-temporal seismogenic characteristics. Specifically, the temporal decay of aftershock activity, the number of strong aftershocks (with magnitudes greater than or equal to 7.0), the magnitude of the greatest aftershock, and area of possible aftershocks. Forecasted results from this study are based on Gutenberg-Richter’s relation, Bath’s law, Omori’s law, and Well’s relation of rupture scale utilizing the magnitude and statistical parameters of earthquakes in USA and China (Landers, Northridge, Hector Mine, San Simeon and Wenchuan earthquakes). The number of strong aftershocks, the parameters of Gutenberg-Richter’s relation, and the modified form of Omori’s law are confirmed based on the aftershock sequence data from the Mw9.0 Tohoku earthquake. Moreover, for a large earthquake, the seismogenic structure could be a fault, a fault system, or an intersection of several faults. The seismogenic structure of the earthquake suggests that the event occurred on a thrust fault near the Japan trench within the overriding plate that subsequently triggered three or more active faults producing large aftershocks.
文摘The Mw 9.0 Tohoku-Oki earthquake that hit the mainland Japan on 11 th March, 2011 had resulted a devastating Tsunami due to an active thrusting between the Pacific and the North American Plates. Static and kinematic offsets at the offshore epicentre of the Mw 9.0 event remain unanswered and being investigated along with their near and far field limiting distances from the epicentre. Accordingly, offset measurements from 60 continuously operating IGS and GEONET GNSS stations were radially classified from the epicentre and interpreted with analytical models to find their linear offset decay rates. Co-and post-seismic static positional anomaly offsets of sixty days show almost all near field stations had strong or appreciable eastward or south eastward static shifts. Near stations(<250 km) showed both kinematic and static offsets. GEONET station ’0175’ showed maximum resultant static offset of-4.5 m, which diminishes approximately 1-2 cm at far sites like SMST and AIRA. Characteristic decay duration(’b’) of the mean kinematic co-seismic shift(’a’)of near field stations was 17.28 s during earthquake hours with an EW component shift >1.5 m. Spatial models of projected N-S static and kinematic offsets show their asymmetrical distributions around the epicentre with maximum model offset of-1.84 m displaced towards south at-45 km north of the epicentre. The Tohoku-Oki earthquake produced a resultant kinematic offset of-10.2 m towards East at its offshore epicentre;while the estimated near field static offset is ~9.82 m. However, both estimates are bigger than double the resultant offset measured value(~4.3 m) in the Japanese mainland using GPS. The difference in the kinematic and static near field offsets highlight that the near surface had elastic or in-elastic kinematic strain dissipation as against the lithospheric level viscoelastic static response, which resulted rapid kinematic strain release(1.12 cm/km)within the limiting radius of ~220 km from the Tohoku-Oki epicentre.
基金supported by the Scientific and Technological Support Project of Jiangsu Province (No.BS2007084)Seismic Technology Spark Project (No.XH12020)
文摘This thesis discusses the earthquake reflecting ability of the observation well pattern system of Jiangsu Province, China, which has been digitally renovated, and probes into the cause of the major differences in the earthquake reflecting abilities of well holes at different measurement points. This is achieved through the analysis of the co-seismic responses to the Wenchuan (2008; Ms8.0, China) and Tohoku (2011; Ms9.0, Japan) earthquakes. We found that the co-seismic response of water level from regional well holes in Jiangsu Province was stronger than that of water temperature. The water-level co-seismic response follows a consistent law and is closely related to the earthquake magnitude. The co-seismic response of water temperature strongly varied among well points, and was more often manifested as a slow restorative change. The co-seismic responses also varied based on tectonic elements. The response in central and northern Jiangsu was weaker than that of southern Jiangsu, possibly due to the thicker loess cover layer in central Jiangsu which makes it less effective at capturing the micro-changes of stress-strain states relative to the hilly land in the south. The more complicated geological structure in southern Jiangsu makes it contribute to greater changes in the state of underground water after a minor disturbance.
文摘The earthquake of March 11 of magnitude 9 offshore Tohoku, Japan, was followed by a tsunami wave with particularly destructive impact, over a coastal area extending approx. 850km along the Pacific Coast of Honshu Island. First arrival times and measurements and maximum height were recorded by the Japanese monitoring system (wherever there was no failure of the equipment). The maximum run-up is well evident in satellite images available through USGS, Google and other institutes. Moreover, personal observations of Prof. Lekkas were made during a field survey in March 2011. The results of the study of the tsunami impact and run-up show the variety of factors affecting the run-up, creating zones with similar phenomena, but also specific locations where run-up exceeds by far the run-up zone maximum values. This differentiation, observed also in the past by other authors, is here attributed to the general orientation of the coast, the distance from the tsunami generation area, bathymetry offshore, the coastline morphology and land geomorphology. In certain cases that funnelling and reflection effects in narrow gulfs parallel to the tsunami propagation vector were combined with narrow valleys onshore, peak run-up exceeded 20m, or even 40 m (Miyagi coastline, Ogatsu, Onagawa, etc).
基金supported by the Research Fund Program of Institute of Seismology, Chinese Earthquake Administration (IS201226045)the Open Research Fund Program of the State Key Laboratory of Geodesy and Earth's Dynamics (SKLGED2013-3-7-E)the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41404065)
文摘The greatest earthquake in the modern history of Japan and probably the fourth greatest in the last 100 years in the world occurred on March 11, 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku.Large tsunami and ground motions caused severe damage in wide areas, particularly many towns along the Pacific coast. So far, gravity change caused by such a great earthquake has been reported for the 1964 Alaska and the 2010 Maule events. However, the spatial-temporal resolution of the gravity data for these cases is insufficient to depict a co-seismic gravity field variation in a spatial scale of a plate subduction zone. Here, we report an unequivocal co-seismic gravity change over the Japanese Island, obtained from a hybrid gravity observation(combined absolute and relative gravity measurements). The time interval of the observation before and after the earthquake is within 1 year at almost all the observed sites, including 13 absolute and 16 relative measurement sites, which deduced tectonic and environmental contributions to the gravity change. The observed gravity agrees well with the result calculated by a dislocation theory based on a self-gravitating and layered spherical earth model. In this computation, a co-seismic slip distribution is determined by an inversion of Global Positioning System(GPS) data. Of particular interest is that the observed gravity change in some area is negative where a remarkable subsidence is observed by GPS, which can not be explained by simple vertical movement of the crust. This indicated that the mass redistribution in the underground affects the gravity change. This result supports the result that Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment(GRACE) satellites detected a crustal dilatation due to the 2004 Sumatra earthquake by the terrestrial observation with a higher spatial and temporal resolution.
文摘During the Mw9 Tohoku-Oki earthquake, gradual increases in both ionosphere total electron content (TEC) and geomagnetic declination signals were observed, starting from ~40 minutes before the mainshock, followed by impulsive enhancements ~10 minutes after the mainshock. There have been many studies on pre-seismic TEC enhancements, including their characteristics, debates regarding whether TEC anomalies are real signals or artefacts, and the explainable models, and many studies have reported that the impulsive TEC enhancement was caused by a tsunami-induced neutral atmospheric gravity wave. Since TEC and geomagnetic declination anomalies were synchronized so that their origin should be attributed to the same seismic activities, any models must explain both anomalous phenomena, but not the case considered herein. Compared with the corresponding TEC anomalies, we re-examined the characteristics of geomagnetic variation just before and after the mainshock, focusing on the generation process of the impulsive enhancement immediately after the mainshock. We showed that the observed anomaly could be explained if there are quasi-static electric currents of 20 - 30 kA generated near the epicentre area. The possible mechanism of the current generation is discussed in terms of the ionization process in the atmosphere near the sea surface.
基金supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41174030)the Director Foundation of Institute of Seismology,China Earthquake Administration (IS200916012)
文摘Using Computerized Ionospheric Tomography (CIT) in combination with GPS observations from the Crustal Movement Observation Network of China (CMONOC), this study reconstructed the electron density distributions over China before the 2011 Tohoku Mw 9.0 earthquake and discovered a prominent ionospheric anomaly on March 8, 2011. Analysis of the solar-terrestrial space environment around the time of the Tohoku earthquake indicated that the March 8 ionospheric anomaly was likely related to the earthquake. Finally, the paper discusses the drift of the ionospheric anomaly, which was inferred from the anomaly being observed by GPS reference sites in China.
基金a part of author’s M.Sc Research under the project:‘‘Strengthening of Earthquake Engineering Center’’,funded by Higher Education Commission,Government of Pakistan
文摘An inversion method was applied to crustal earthquakes dataset to find S-wave attenuation characteristics beneath the Eastern Tohoku region of Japan. Accelerograms from 85 shallow crustal earthquakes up to 25 km depth and magnitude range between 3.5 and 5.5 were analyzed to estimate the seismic quality factor Qs. A homogeneous attenuation model Qs for the wave propagation path was evaluated from spectral amplitudes, at 24 different frequencies between 0.5 and 20 Hz by using generalized inversion technique. To do this, non-parametric attenuation functions were calculated to observe spectral amplitude decay with hypocentral distance. Then, these functions were parameterized to estimate Qs. It was found that in Eastern Tohoku region, the Qs frequency dependence can be approximated with the function 33 f 1.22 within a frequency range between 0.5 and 20 Hz. However, the frequency dependence of Qs in the frequency range between 0.5 and 6 Hz is best approximated by Qs (f) = 36 f 0.94 showing relatively weaker frequency dependence as compared to the relation Qs (f) = 6 f^ 2.09 for the frequency range between 6 and 15 Hz. These results could be used to estimate source and site parameters for seismic hazard assessment in the region.
基金funded by the grants of National Natural Science Foundation of China (41274086) to LB and JR, and a University of Michigan Rackham Merit Fellowship to LML
文摘Aftershocks of the 2011 Tohoku-Oki great earthquake have a wide range of focal depths and fault plane mechanisms. We constrain the focal depths and focal mechanisms of 69 aftershocks with Mw 〉 5.4 by modeling the waveforms of teleseismic P and its trailing near-surface reflections pP and sP. We find that the "thrust events" are within 10 krn from the plate interface. The dip angles of these thrust events increase with depth from ~ 5~ to ~ 25~. The "non-thrust events" vary from 60 km above to 40 km below the plate interface. Normal and strike-slip events within the overriding plate point to redistribution of stress following the primary great earthquake; however, due to the spatially variable stress change in the Tohoku-Oki earthquake, an understanding of how the mainshock affected the stresses that led to the aftershocks requires accurate knowledge of the aftershock location.
基金supported by NSFC grants(Nos.91128210and 40821062)
文摘Frequency-dependent rupture behavior of sub- duction zone interplate megathrust faults has been observed by back-projection method in different frequency bands (from 0.05 to 5 Hz). It has been suggested that the down-dip region of the Tohoku megathrust radiated strongly at high frequencies (〉10 Hz) compared with that of the up-dip region. By assuming the same source tirne function of each fault patch, we perform a synthetic sensitivity analysis to compare the energy received from the shallower parts (and further way from the receiver sites) with that frona the deeper parts (and closer to the receiver sites) of the rupture. Our results indicate that regional onshore recordings are probably not adequate to constrain the presence of far-off shore high frequency radiations because of the strong attenuation of this region.
文摘This paper describes the dynamic characteristics of a damaged nine story building in Sendal during the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake. Dynamic hysteresis characteristic is investigated. The system identification using the extended Kalman filter determined the amplitude dependency of natural frequency and damping factor, which are consistent with damage feature. Occurrence of partial uplifting in the transverse direction is suggested by the induced higher harmonics based on the wavelet analysis. Historical change of the amplitude dependent dynamic characteristics is also discussed based on the long-term monitoring data from microtremor level to strong motion level.
文摘Damage caused by the 2011 Tohoku Earthquake (Mw 9.0) to transmission and distribution pipelines in Sendai City is summarized. The locations of the pipeline repairs are discussed relative to earthquake intensity, geomorphologic conditions and landform change in the developed areas of hilly land. Repair rate (repairs/km) is summarized according to pipe material and presence or absence of artificial landform change. The following findings were obtained: (1) More than 80% of the repairs took place in pipelines installed in higher lands such as hill and terrace areas consisting of hard soils; (2) Nearly all the pipe repairlocations in hill areas are where landform change was made through land development tor residential purposes over me past several decades; (3) The aforementioned repair rate was more than 3.6 times than that of other lowland areas where no landform change occurred. The heaviest concentrations of pipe repairs of vinyl chloride pipes and ductile iron pipes were observed within the boundary area between cutting and filling, having a thickness between -2.5 m and 2.5 m. Approximately 78% of the all pipe repairs occurred outside of areas where severe ground failures took place. A mechanism of pipe damage in the areas free of severe ground failure was discussed.