Repeated occurrence of surface-sediment remobilization along the landward slope of the Japan Trench by great earthquakes

Abstract

Deep-sea turbidites have been utilized to understand the history of past large earthquakes. Surface-sediment remobilization is considered to be a mechanism for the initiation of earthquake-induced turbidity currents, based on the studies on the event deposits formed by recent great earthquakes, such as the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake, although submarine slope failure has been considered to be a major contributor. However, it is still unclear that the surface-sediment remobilization has actually occurred in past great earthquakes. We examined a sediment core recovered from the mid-slope terrace (MST) along the Japan Trench to find evidence of past earthquake-induced surface-sediment remobilization. Coupled radiocarbon dates for turbidite and hemipelagic muds in the core show small age differences (less than a few 100 years) and suggest that initiation of turbidity currents caused by the earthquake-induced surface-sediment remobilization has occurred repeatedly during the last 2300 years. On the other hand, two turbidites among the examined 11 turbidites show relatively large age differences (~ 5000 years) that indicate the occurrence of large sea-floor disturbances such as submarine slope failures. The sedimentological (i.e., of diatomaceous nature and high sedimentation rates) and tectonic (i.e., continuous subsidence and isolated small basins) settings of the MST sedimentary basins provide favorable conditions for the repeated initiation of turbidity currents and for deposition and preservation of fine-grained turbidites. The MST small basin is a suitable site for examining deep-sea turbidite paleoseismology.[Figure not available: see fulltext.].