On 11 March 2011, the Tohoku-oki earthquake in eastern Japan and the
devastating tsunami that followed it caused severe damage and numerous
deaths. To clarify the rupture process of the earthquake, we inverted
teleseismic P-wave data applying a novel formulation that takes into
account the uncertainty of Green's function, which has been a major
error source in waveform inversion. The estimated seismic moment
is 5.7 x 10^22 Nm (Mw = 9.1), associated with a fault rupture 440
km long and 180 km wide along the plate interface. The source process
is characterized by asymmetric bilateral rupture propagation, but
we also found continuous slips up-dip from the hypocenter, which
led to a large maximum slip (50 m), long slip duration (90 s), and
a large stress drop (20 MPa). The long slip duration, large stress
drop, extensional (normal faulting) aftershocks in a previously compressional
stress regime, and low-angle normal slips at approximately the depth
of the plate interface suggest that the earthquake released roughly
all of the accumulated elastic strain on the plate interface owing
to exceptional weakening of the fault. The stress accumulated on
the plate interface was about 20 MPa near the trench and 0-10 MPa
in the down-dip source region.
%0 Journal Article
%1 yagi_fukahata:2011
%A Yagi, Yuji
%A Fukahata, Yukitoshi
%D 2011
%J Geophysical Research Letters
%K geophysics seismology
%N 19
%P L19307+
%R 10.1029/2011GL048701
%T Rupture process of the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake and absolute elastic
strain release
%U http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL048701
%V 38
%X On 11 March 2011, the Tohoku-oki earthquake in eastern Japan and the
devastating tsunami that followed it caused severe damage and numerous
deaths. To clarify the rupture process of the earthquake, we inverted
teleseismic P-wave data applying a novel formulation that takes into
account the uncertainty of Green's function, which has been a major
error source in waveform inversion. The estimated seismic moment
is 5.7 x 10^22 Nm (Mw = 9.1), associated with a fault rupture 440
km long and 180 km wide along the plate interface. The source process
is characterized by asymmetric bilateral rupture propagation, but
we also found continuous slips up-dip from the hypocenter, which
led to a large maximum slip (50 m), long slip duration (90 s), and
a large stress drop (20 MPa). The long slip duration, large stress
drop, extensional (normal faulting) aftershocks in a previously compressional
stress regime, and low-angle normal slips at approximately the depth
of the plate interface suggest that the earthquake released roughly
all of the accumulated elastic strain on the plate interface owing
to exceptional weakening of the fault. The stress accumulated on
the plate interface was about 20 MPa near the trench and 0-10 MPa
in the down-dip source region.
@article{yagi_fukahata:2011,
abstract = {On 11 March 2011, the Tohoku-oki earthquake in eastern Japan and the
devastating tsunami that followed it caused severe damage and numerous
deaths. To clarify the rupture process of the earthquake, we inverted
teleseismic P-wave data applying a novel formulation that takes into
account the uncertainty of Green's function, which has been a major
error source in waveform inversion. The estimated seismic moment
is 5.7 x 10^22 Nm (Mw = 9.1), associated with a fault rupture 440
km long and 180 km wide along the plate interface. The source process
is characterized by asymmetric bilateral rupture propagation, but
we also found continuous slips up-dip from the hypocenter, which
led to a large maximum slip (50 m), long slip duration (90 s), and
a large stress drop (20 MPa). The long slip duration, large stress
drop, extensional (normal faulting) aftershocks in a previously compressional
stress regime, and low-angle normal slips at approximately the depth
of the plate interface suggest that the earthquake released roughly
all of the accumulated elastic strain on the plate interface owing
to exceptional weakening of the fault. The stress accumulated on
the plate interface was about 20 MPa near the trench and 0-10 MPa
in the down-dip source region.},
added-at = {2012-09-01T13:08:21.000+0200},
author = {Yagi, Yuji and Fukahata, Yukitoshi},
biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2b8e978309d1b13cbb6cca6fc7932dbe2/nilsma},
day = 13,
doi = {10.1029/2011GL048701},
interhash = {8ddb0ad00744f6680c31a046caa31dde},
intrahash = {b8e978309d1b13cbb6cca6fc7932dbe2},
issn = {0094-8276},
journal = {Geophysical Research Letters},
keywords = {geophysics seismology},
month = oct,
number = 19,
pages = {L19307+},
timestamp = {2021-02-09T13:26:37.000+0100},
title = {Rupture process of the 2011 Tohoku-oki earthquake and absolute elastic
strain release},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2011GL048701},
volume = 38,
year = 2011
}