Insight into complex rupturing of the immature bending normal fault in the outer slope of the Japan Trench from aftershocks of the 2005 Sanriku earthquake (Mw = 7.0) located by ocean bottom seismometry

Abstract

The distribution of aftershocks of a large (Mw = 7.0) normal faulting earthquake beneath the outer slope of the Japan Trench in 2005, measured in 2007 using ocean bottom seismographs, indicates that the earthquake was involved with a set of conjugate normal faults. Although the faults reach to the upper mantle, the estimated Vp and Vp/Vs show no remarkable changes that can be related to extensive hydration in the crust or uppermost mantle. The absence of horst‐graben topographic structure in the rupture area suggests that immaturity of the bending fault system is responsible for the relatively unhydrated lithosphere. Several earthquakes below the aftershock zone may belong to the lower plane seismicity of the shallow double seismic zone. Because no earthquakes were recorded in the area for more than 80 years before the 2005 event, shallow extensional and deep compressive earthquakes may be activated concurrently in the focal area of this earthquake.