Fault model of the 12th century southwestern Hokkaido earthquake estimated from tsunami deposit distributions

Abstract

Tsunami deposits were collected along the coast of southwestern Hokkaido and Okushiri Island, northern Japan. The distribution of these deposits suggested that large earthquakes and tsunamis have repeatedly occurred off southwestern Hokkaido. Along the southern coast of Okushiri Island, five tsunami sand/gravel layers have been deposited during the last 3000 years. The latest was deposited by the 1741 Oshima–Oshima landslide tsunami and the second by the 12th century tsunami. The later tsunami was probably generated by a large earthquake because submarine seismo-turbidites with similar age exist in the region and a large inland landslide had occurred in Okushiri Island in approximately the 12th century. The ages of paleo-tsunami events prior to the 12th century are 1.5–1.6, 2.4–2.6, 2.8–3.1 ka. In this study, a fault model of the 12th century earthquake was estimated by comparing tsunami deposit distributions and calculated tsunami inundation areas at five sites in Okushiri Island and Hiyama region. Fault model F17, a submarine active fault in the Japan Sea near Oshima–Oshima, is a probable source for this tsunami. Numerical simulation of the tsunami was performed based on fault model F17; we modified the fault parameters (length and slip amount) from the original model to explain tsunami deposit distributions. A shorter length of 104 km and a larger slip amount of 18 m were appropriate for the fault model on the basis of parametric studies. The seismic moment of the earthquake was calculated to be 9.95 × 1020 Nm (Mw 7.9) assuming a rigidity of 3.43 × 1010 N/m2. The estimated fault model is located between the focal regions of the 1993 Hokkaido Nansei-oki earthquake and the 1983 Japan Sea earthquake.