Stress accumulation and release inside the plate remains poorly understood compared to that at the plate boundaries. Spatiotemporal variations in foreshock and aftershock activities can provide key constraints on time‐dependent stress and deformation processes inside the plate. The 2017 M5.2 Akita‐Daisen intraplate earthquake in NE Japan was preceded by intense foreshock activity and triggered a strong sequence of aftershocks. We examine the spatiotemporal distributions of foreshocks and aftershocks and determine the coseismic slip distribution of the mainshock. Our results indicate that seismicity both before and after the mainshock was concentrated on a planar structure with N‐S strike that dips steeply eastward. We observe a migration of foreshocks toward the mainshock rupture area, suggesting the possibility that foreshocks were triggered by aseismic phenomena preceding the mainshock rupture. The mainshock rupture propagated toward the north, showing less slip beneath foreshock regions. The stress drop of the mainshock was 1.4 MPa, and the radiation efficiency was 0.72. Aftershocks were intensely triggered near the edge of large coseismic slip regions where shear stress increased. The aftershock region expanded along the fault strike, which can be attributed to the postseismic aseismic slip of the mainshock. We find that the foreshocks, mainshock, aftershocks, and postseismic slip released stress at different segments along the fault, which may reflect differences in frictional properties. Obtained results were similar to those observed for interplate earthquakes, which supports the hypothesis that the deformation processes along plate boundaries and intraplate faults are fundamentally the same.
An earthquake is a natural phenomenon during which a high-speed rupture propagates along a fault. Two factors control the occurrence of an earthquake: an increase in the shear stress acting on the fault and a decrease in the fault strength. Some aseismic processes modulate the shear stress or the fault strength and affect the earthquake occurrence. For example, pore pressure migrations reduce the fault strength, and aseismic slips redistribute the shear stress on the fault.There is growing evidence that earthquake swarms are closely related to fluid movement at depth. Seismicity induced by fluid injection is a well-known example of seismicity caused by pore pressure increase (e.g., Healy et al., 1968). The characteristics of many earthquake swarms are similar to those of fluid injection-induced seismicity (e.g.,
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.