Source rupture process of the 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake deduced from strong-motion data considering seismic wave propagation in three-dimensional velocity structure

Abstract

The source rupture process of the 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake (M JMA 6.7) was analyzed by a kinematic waveform inversion method using strong-motion data in 0.04-0.5 Hz. This earthquake occurred close to the Hidaka Collision Zone and the Ishikari depression, where the crustal structure is rather complex. Thus, we used a three-dimensional velocity structure model to compute the theoretical Green's functions by the finite difference method. A source fault model with strike-angle variation was set based on the spatial distribution of the early aftershocks. The strongmotion stations used for the source inversion were selected based on the result of forward ground motion simulation of a moderate aftershock. The slip in the first 5 s was relatively small, but an area of significant slip with peak slip of 1.7 m was found in the depth range from 22 to 32 km. The rupture propagated upward mainly in the southwest direction. Based on the regional crustal structure and the configuration of the Moho discontinuity, the large-slip area was thought to be located in the lower crust, and its rupture did not reach the upper part of the continental crust. Most of the early aftershocks occurred around the large-slip area. The later aftershocks at the depth shallower than 20 km occurred outside the causative source fault of the mainshock. Three-dimensional ground motion simulation demonstrated that the heterogeneous source process and the three-dimensional basin and crustal velocity structure brought a large velocity pulse to an area to the southwest of the source fault, where the largest PGV was observed during the mainshock. The spatial distribution of the simulated PGV resembled the observed PGV distribution except some sites located inside the Ishikari depression where thick Quaternary soft low-velocity sediments exist at the top of the basin.

Dynamic rupture simulation of 2018, Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake: role of non-planar geometry

“…Blue arrows indicate the outline of the rupture propagation. The red lines drawn from t = 6 to 9 s, respectively, connect the rupture fronts propagating to north and south; the larger inclination of the north indicates faster rupture velocity this is regarded within the uncertainty of the inversion as discussed in Asano and Iwata (2019).…”

“…The rupture process has been inverted kinematically making use of the observational record of the strong ground motion (Asano and Iwata 2019). We compare the rupture process of the current models with this slip inversion result to validate the characteristic of our model by focusing on Model 5.…”

“…In this study, we first aim to explain the physical reasons for this complex rupture process. While previous studies provided insights into the kinematic feature of this earthquake (Asano and Iwata 2019), physical conditions such as stress field underlying the event are poorly understood. Therefore, we conducted dynamic rupture simulations by giving minimal assumptions constrained with observed facts (i.e., the aftershock distribution, the stress tensor inversion from CMT solutions, the principal stress σ v proportional to depth z (Brudy et al 1997), the first motion polarity) as much as we could, rather than introducing many tuning parameters, which makes the model validation difficult.…”

Focal Mechanisms and the Stress Field in the Aftershock Area of the 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi Earthquake (MJMA = 6.7)

“…GMT-SYSTEM (Wessel and Smith 1991) was used for mapping data. 4 Tohoku University, 5 Nagoya University, 6 Kagoshima University, 7 Hirosaki University, 8 Kyoto University, 9 Chiba University, 10 National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience and 11 KOZO KEIKAKU ENGINEERING Inc., Tokyo, Japan…”

Focal mechanisms and the stress field in the aftershock area of the 2018 Hokkaido Eastern Iburi earthquake (MJMA = 6.7)

“…All authors read and approved the nal manuscript. 4 Tohoku University, 5 Nagoya University, 6 Kagoshima University, 7 Hirosaki University, 8 Kyoto University, 9 Chiba University, 10 National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience and 11 KOZO KEIKAKU ENGINEERING Inc., Tokyo, Japan…”