Seismic quiescence and activation anomalies from 2005 to 2008 beneath the Kanto district, central Honshu, Japan

Abstract

In the present study, an earthquake catalog is used that lists 1, 197 earthquakes with M ≥ 3.9. All of the earthquake waveforms were recorded by the Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo. These waveforms have been manually re-examined, and hypocenters and magnitudes re-calculated. A detailed analysis of the re-determined earthquake catalog between 1996 and 2007, using a gridding technique (ZMAP), shows a pair of seismic quiescence and activation anomalies that start around the middle of 2005, and last about 30 months. The pair of quiescence and activation anomalies are located very close to each other, and the Z-values are +5.0 and - 3.8 for a time window of T w = 1.5 years, using a sample size of N = 100 earthquakes. The anomaly pair is not a coincidence as is confirmed by a numerical simulation with the assumption of random seismicity. One possible hypothesis is presented to explain the seismicity anomaly: a long-term slow slip event (LSSE) occurs on the upper boundary of the subducting Pacific plate, and the seismic quiescence and activation anomalies are caused by the Coulomb failure stress change associated with the LSSE. Copyright © The Society of Geomagnetism and Earth, Planetary and Space Sciences (SGEPSS).