Magnitude determination using duration of high frequency energy radiation and displacement amplitude: application to the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake

Abstract

We have applied a technique to determine earthquake magnitudes, using durations of high frequency energy radiation and the maximum displacement amplitudes, to the 2011 off the Pacific coast of Tohoku Earthquake. The estimated duration of high frequency energy radiation and magnitude are 170.5 s, and 8.96, respectively. This agrees well with preliminary analyses for this earthquake. Compared with the December 26, 2004, Sumatra earthquake (Mw 9.0), this event is characterized by a shorter duration of high frequency energy radiation and a larger displacement amplitude. The measured durations of high frequency energy radiation show azimuthal dependence, which indicates rupture propagation in the southwest direction. This result, together with rupture models obtained by other studies using lower frequency seismic signals or tsunami waveforms, suggests that there were two distinct rupture propagations in this event: one in a southwest direction from which high frequency energies were radiated efficiently, and the other in an east direction from which a very large seismic moment was released. We measured the time differences between P-wave arrivals and the times at which the absolute amplitudes of high bandpass (2–4 Hz) filtered P-waves became the largest. Most of the measured time differences, normalized by twice the centroid time shift, are in the range between 50 and 80 per cent. This is consistent with the frequency distribution that we obtained previously for a set of 68 large shallow earthquakes.