Aseismic fault movement before the 1995 Kobe earthquake detected by a GPS survey: implication for preseismic stress localization?

Abstract

By inversion analysis of the baseline changes and horizontal displacements observed with GPS (Global Positioning System) during 1990–1994, a high-angle reverse fault was detected in the Shikoku-Kinki region, southwest Japan. The active blind fault is characterized by reverse dip-slip (0.7±0.2 m yr−1 within a layer 17–26 km deep) with a length of 208±5 km, a (down-dip) width of 9±2 km, a dip-angle of 51°±2° and a strike direction of 40°±2° (NE). Evidence from the geological investigation of subfaults close to the southwestern portion of the fault, two historical earthquakes (ML=7.0, 1789 and 6.4, 1955) near the centre of the fault, and an additional inversion analysis of the baseline changes recorded by the nationwide permanent GPS array from 18 January to 31 December 1995 partially demonstrates the existence of the fault, and suggests that it might be a reactivation of a pre-existing fault in this region. The fact that hardly any earthquakes (ML>2.0) occurred at depth on the inferred fault plane suggests that the fault activity was largely aseismic. Based on the parameters of the blind fault estimated in this study, we evaluated stress changes in this region. It is found that shear stress concentrated and increased by up to 2.1 bar yr−1 at a depth of about 20 km around the epicentral area of the 1995 January 17 Kobe earthquake (ML=7.2, Japan), and that the earthquake hypocentre received a Coulomb failure stress of about 5.6 bar yr−1 during 1990–1994. The results suggest that the 1995 Kobe earthquake could have been induced or triggered by aseismic fault movement.