Re-examination of the age of historical and paleo-tsunami deposits at Koyadori on the Sanriku Coast, Northeast Japan

Abstract

High-accuracy age estimations of tsunami deposits are very important for tsunami deposit research because the recurrence interval and frequency of tsunami deposits allow us to assess the devastating impacts of tsunamis in a populated country such as Japan. The correlation of tsunami events between remote coastal areas further enables us to constrain tsunami scenarios and fault segmentation along a trench. Before the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake, the long-term tsunami history along the Sanriku Coast was not well known. Age data of the long-term tsunami history are essential to understand the mechanisms of tsunami generation and earthquakes and to assess the risks posed by them. This study re-examined the age of historical and paleo-tsunami deposits (E1 to E11 deposits) at Koyadori in the middle of the Sanriku Coast and estimated their ages with high accuracy by using continuous sediments since approximately 4 ka. Radiocarbon dating was conducted in combination with other radiometric dating methods (137Cs and excess 210Pb) to estimate the ages of the sediments. The resulting ages revealed the reliable ages of ten historical and paleo-tsunami deposits. The average recurrence interval of historical and paleo-tsunamis in the last 4 ka is 350–390 years, and each recurrence interval between the E4 and E11 deposits is similar despite the tsunami deposits having different characteristics. Moreover, far-field tsunamis do not seem to inundate this site based on the observed and documented records. The continuous and long-term data of tsunami deposits at Koyadori offer important constraints on the timing and frequency of near-field earthquakes (e.g., megathrust, outer-rise, and tsunami earthquakes) around the Japan Trench.