Depth distribution of coseismic slip along the Nankai Trough, Japan, from joint inversion of geodetic and tsunami data

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Coseismic slip distribution on the fault plane, particularly in the downdip direction, associated with large subduction earthquakes can be estimated by joint inversion of geodetic and tsunami data. Two large earthquakes, the 1944 Tonankai earthquake (Mw=8.1) and the 1946 Nankaido earthquake (Mw=8.3), occurred on the Nankai trough, southwestern Japan, where the Philippine Sea plate is subducting beneath the Eurasian plate. The source areas of these events extended over both land and ocean. Coseismic crustal movements on land were measured by leveling, while those in ocean were recorded as tsunami waveforms on tide gauges. The coseismic slip distribution inverted from these data shows that the slip on the shallower part of the fault plane is comparable to that on the deeper parts. This indicates that large coseismic slip can occur beneath an accretionary wedge where current seismicity is low. The result has implications for other subduction zones having a similar tectonic environment such as for the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. Although the possibility of a large earthquake there is still debated, should a large subduction earthquake occur in this region, coseismic slip on the shallow part could be large, and the potential for large tsunamis is high.