Seismic structure of the northeastern Japan convergent margin: A synthesis

Abstract

Many studies recently made on the basis of seismic observations have revealed a detailed structure of the crust and the upper mantle beneath the northeastern Japan arc and its relationship to seismic and volcanic activity. Spatial distributions of the depths to the Conrad and the Moho discontinuities, estimated from shallow earthquake data and seismic explosion data, show that both discontinuities are deep in the middle of the land area and shallow toward the coastlines of the Japan Sea and the Pacific Ocean. The Pn velocity has a lateral variation; it is as low as ∼7.5 km/s beneath the land area, while that beneath the Japan Sea and the Pacific Ocean is 8.0–8.2 km/s. It changes abruptly at the transition zones, which are located along the coastlines. Precise structure and location of the subducted Pacific plate beneath the land area is inferred from converted or reflected seismic waves at the top or bottom of the plate. The Pacific plate is composed of a thin (∼5 km) low‐velocity upper layer and a thick high‐velocity lower layer, its total thickness being 80–90 km. The upper plane seismicity of the double seismic zone is confined to the thin low‐velocity upper layer, which probably corresponds to the subducted former oceanic crust. The lower plane seismicity lies at the middle of the high‐velocity lower layer, and the lower half of the plate below it is incapable of generating earthquakes. The shallower portion of the upper surface of the plate beneath the Pacific Ocean, along which major seismicity with low‐angle thrust faultings is actually occurring, is also located by seismic observations on land and in the sea. The Pacific plate subducts at an extremely low angle of ∼5° for the first ∼25‐km depth, and then the dip steepens rather abruptly to ∼30°. Normal‐fault type events at the top of the plate have not been detected in the portion where the downward‐bending is the largest, but have been ditected near the trench axis, where it is rather small. Tomographic inversions for seismic velocity structure clearly delineate the inclined high‐velocity Pacific plate with a thickness of 80–90 km and low‐velocity zones in the crust and the mantle wedge beneath active volcanoes. Seismic attenuation tomography also shows similar zones of low‐Q value beneath active volcanoes, although its spatial resolution is much lower. The low‐velocity zones with 2–6% velocity lows are continuously distributed from the upper crust just beneath active volcanoes to a depth of 100–150 km in the mantle wedge, and are approximately parallel to the dip of the underlying Pacific plate. These low‐velocity zones probably reflect the pathway of magma ascent from a depth in the mantle wedge to the Earth's surface, corresponding to a portion of the subduction‐induced secondary mantle wedge flow.