High-angle reverse faulting associated with the 1946 Nankaido earthquake

Abstract

Analysis of vertical crustal deformation data in the southwestern part of Shikoku, southwest Japan, suggests that the Nankaido earthquake of 1946 ( M w = 8.1), which is a principal interplate thrust earthquake, was accompanied by subsidiary faulting on a splay fault adjacent to the coast of Shikoku. Discarding crustal movement resulting from the main thrusting of the Nankaido earthquake, local leveling data are explained by slip on a simple rectangular thrust fault located just offshore of Shikoku. Although it is difficult to constrain the fault location, a possible result is a high-angle thrust dipping landward at an angle of about 70°, with a dislocation of about 1.5 m, and source dimensions of 30 × 13 km along strike and dip. respectively. This result indicates that the fault may be one of the steeply dipping subsidiary faults branching from the main low-angle thrust, as was the case in the Alaska earthquake of 1964. Although several lines of evidence suggest that this faulting occurred as slow aseismic slip, its discrimination from the main seismic event is extremely difficult. This kind of high-angle thrusting just offshore of the coast would play an important role for the formation of the marine terraces during the late Quaternary period.