The 2024 M_(j) 7.6 Noto Peninsula, Japan earthquake caused by the fluid flow in the crust

On January 1, 2024 at 16:10:09 JST, an M_(j) 7.6 earthquake struck the Noto Peninsula in the southern part of the Sea of Japan. This location has been experiencing an earthquake swarm for more than three years. Here, we provide an overview of this earthquake, focusing on the slip distribution of the mainshock and its relationship with the preceding swarm. We also reexamined the source areas of other large earthquakes that occurred around the Sea of Japan in the past and compared them with the Matsushiro earthquake swarm in central Japan from1964 to 1968. The difference between the Matsushiro earthquake swarm and the Noto earthquake swarm is the surrounding stress field. The Matsushiro earthquake swarm was a strike-slip stress field, so the cracks in the crust were oriented vertically. This allowed fluids seeped from the depths to rise and flow out to the surface. On the other hand, the Noto area was a reverse fault stress field. Therefore, the cracks in the earth's crust were oriented horizontally. Fluids flowing underground in deep areas could not rise and spread over a wide area in the horizontal plane. This may have caused a large amount of fluid to accumulate underground, triggering a large earthquake. Although our proposed mechanism does not take into account other complex geological conditions into consideration, it may provide a simple way to explain why the Noto swarm is followed by a large earthquake while other swarms are not.

Rushan earthquake swarm in eastern China and its indications of fluid-triggered rupture

An extraordinary earthquake swarm occurred at Rushan on the Jiaodong Peninsula from October 1, 2013, onwards, and more than 12,000 aftershocks had been detected by December 31, 2015. All the activities of the whole swarm were recorded at the nearest station, RSH, which is located about 12 km from the epicenter. We examine the statistical characteristics of the Rushan swarm in this paper using RSH station data to assess the arrival time difference, ts p, of Pg and Sg phases. A temporary network comprising 18 seismometers was set up on May 6, 2014, within the area of the epicenter; based on the data from this network and use of the double difference method, we determine precise hypocenter locations. As the distribution of relocated sources reveals migration of seismic activity, we applied the mean-shift cluster method to perform clustering analysis on relocated catalogs. The results of this study show that there were at least 16 clusters of seismic activities between May 6, 2014, and June 30, 2014, and that each was characterized by a hypocenter spreading process. We estimated the hydraulic diffusivity, D, of each cluster using envelope curve fitting; the results show that D values range between 1.2 and 3.5 m2/d and that approximate values for clusters on the edge of the source area are lower than those within the central area. We utilize an epidemic-type aftershock sequence （ETAS） model to separate external triggered events from self-excited aftershocks within the Rushan swarm. The estimated parameters for this model suggest that α = 1.156, equiva- lent to sequences induced by fluid-injection, and that the forcing rate （μ） implies just 0.15 events per day. These estimates indicate that around 3% of the events within the swarm were externally triggered. The fact that variation in μ is synchronous with swarm activity implies that pulses in fluid pressure likely drove this series of earthquakes.

ETAS Model Analysis on the Chang Island Earthquake Swarm in Shandong Province,China

Influenced by the layout of seismic network and the location of earthquakes,earthquake catalogs are often incomplete;such incompleteness of earthquake catalogue directly affects the analysis of sequence activity characteristics.In this paper,the GPU-acceleration-based g template matching method is used to scan the continuous waveforms of Chang Island earthquake swarm in Shandong Province from February 9 to August 20,2017.In total,15,286 earthquakes events were detected,which was more than 6 times compared with those in network catalogue and thus reduced the magnitude of completeness from 1.0 to 0.5.Based on the intergrated catalogue of earthquakes,the characteristics of Chang Island earthquake swarm were then analyzed using the Epidemic Type Aftershock Sequences(ETAS)model.The stochastic components in the ETAS model are used as a proxy for possible earthquake triggered by external forces(fluids).The results show that the proportion of earthquakes triggered by external forces of Chang Island swarm increases gradually(from 31.9%to 63.5%)and then decreases.The latter stage of swarm development is mainly affected by the self-excitation of earthquakes,suggesting that the fluids play an important role in the development of the Chang Island swarm.However,the triggering intensity of fluids to microseismicity is divergent in different periods,which may be related to the process of fluid permeation.